


Tempora Mutantur [Refreshed]

by LaFrae



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood and Violence, F/M, France (Country), Hogwarts, Magic, Paranoia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Romance, Training, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24232984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaFrae/pseuds/LaFrae
Summary: The Final Task did more than just damage Harry. Voldemort's uprising sparked a will within him, a will to change. Waves of Change is coming, and Harry is going to ride it out to fulfil the responsibility bestowed upon him since before he was born. One peculiar French witch might just be the catalyst to his victory. It's not just another love story between a witch and a wizard. [This story is the Refreshed & Revived Edition of Tempora Mutantur, a story abandoned back in late-2017]
Relationships: Fleur Delacour & Harry Potter, Fleur Delacour/Harry Potter
Comments: 22
Kudos: 65





	1. Nos et Mutamur in Illis

**Author's Note:**

> **Author Note:** You guessed it. I refreshed and revived the story. It's been so long that I might as well clean up the previous three chapters. Allow me to emphasise for the last time. If you are expecting a God-like Harry versus the world, you’re mistaken.
> 
>  **Changes in Refresh Edition:**  
>  Grammar & Style Changes  
> Adverb Culling  
> New Paragraphs & Character Building  
> Conversion of Straight & Single Quotation Marks to Curly & Double Quotation Marks  
> Lessened British Slang (as per complaints)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry returns from Hogwarts, to a couple of surprises.

“I know Professor Dumbledore told us not to owl you, but be safe mate,” said Ronald in the stiff, one-armed hug he threw around his silent best friend. Fred and George already had their go at him, ruffling his hair and tampering with his character, despite Harry’s rather impassive disposition. On the bright side, they were mindful not to arouse too much attention on the bustling platform of the nine and third quarter.

None party to the boy-who-lived wanted attention. If reporters, the Daily Prophet in particular, continued to forgo all formalities and smother students on the platform of Hogsmeade, there was nothing stopping them from doing the same at Kings Cross. Nothing other than piles of Hogwarts students making it difficult to locate anyone you wanted on time.

However, Draco Malfoy defied that normality and was escorted off the platform almost as soon as he’d gotten off the express.

Stood behind the embraced boys was an impatient bushy brunette bookworm, waiting for her fair share of Harry. When Harry pulled away from his best mate, Hermione ambushed him. Her arms wrapping around and underneath his arms in a bone-crushing hug from behind, staggering him.

Catching himself from stumbling, she pulled herself closer, pressing her cheek into his back. Despite facing the wrong direction, her teary eyes were impossible to miss. Harry couldn’t help but wonder if Hermione was more damaged by the outcome of the year than the cursed one himself. 

Regretfully, at the present moment, he couldn’t help but take notice at features of the lady pressing against him. Noticing such menial things thanks to his friends and hormonal new normal produced a new realm of self-loathing. Moving to act like he was cracking his neck, Harry knocked some sense into himself. Sending the reminder that nobody, let alone Hermione, deserved such objectification.

Guilt stricken, it was more than enough.

Harry wriggled in place, turning under her embrace until he was facing the bookworm. He’d grown a little since the start of the year, tall enough to allow her to rest her head on his shoulder rather than against it. Feeling his shirt dampen was heartbreaking, because his own heart had decided on remaining apathetic and impassive. Forcing him into a position where the proper emotional response that would make her feel better wasn’t in his deck of cards anymore. Harry couldn’t even recall saying over two real sentences since their departure eight hours ago. 

Hence his silence as he brought his hand up to rub her back while his other wrapped around her. Despite his resistance, his own eyes welled up as if her tears affected him on a chemical level. Thinking quick, with a smooth motion, he brought a hand up under his lenses and wiped the water away before it became noticeable.

“I’ll miss you,” she croaked, muffled between them as the bones in Harry’s body suffered, almost bending in impossible ways. He suppressed the urge to groan to prevent an audible confession of discomfort. As if that had stopped her before, but the passing year changed everything.

“I’ll miss you too.” Harry’s rare words amplified her emotional state, calling more tears to be summoned, and the embrace to be lengthened. But he couldn’t bring himself to feel. 

He felt like he lacked the authority to have them anymore.

For every moment he closed his eyes, the darkness under his eyelids dragged him back to that godforsaken graveyard. For every shade of green glanced upon in the Scotland landscape reminded him of the streak of green that raced and engulfed the real champion of Hogwarts. Even the mere brush of heat venting off the stove in the centre of his dorm room made him flinch, a reflection of the burning sensation the cruciatus curse offered.

Upon entering the tournament — against his will — no one would have ever thought any champion that returned from the maze would be the same one that entered.

Their embrace came to a close as Hermione’s father placed a hand on her shoulder, tugging in what Harry assumed to be fatherly instinct.

“Mr Granger,” Harry acknowledged; the intimidation that her father had in for him having little to no effect. 

“Mr Potter,” he said back. Harry recalled Hermione’s assurances from the year prior — that he acted such towards any male around his darling daughter. However, the lady behind him stuck out. Her brunette hair tied into a high ponytail befitting the light makeup on her features. With a striking resemblance to that of Hermione on the day of the yule ball, which already set off danger signals. The thought of engaging in a prolonged conversation with anyone, especially parents, made him anxious.

The last parent he’d talked to was Amos Diggory in Dumbledore’s office a few days after the third task. Heart wrenching was by far the mildest word to describe the interaction. 

Mr Diggory had bags under his eyes. His jaw was weak. Tired. As if they haven’t stopped trembling with his weeping. Harry didn’t have the right words to give the father of the corpse he brought back from the graveyard. Parts of him wanted to swear upon his life that the next body he would bring back was Voldemort’s. But that’s not what Amos would have wanted, that wouldn’t bring his son back.

He could feel his heart beating against his skin, like a hammer on an anvil with every brutal pound. Harry could even feel the beating up to the inside of his ears. All it took was a few moments for him to feel breathless. 

His left arm stung with every anxious clench of his hand. It was this stinging, this pain, that made Harry grow conscious of how he must have appeared.

“I apologise that I can’t stick around but my uncle doesn’t like to be kept waiting, and I’d prefer that a scene isn’t pulled this early in the morning,” Harry mustered with an intentional, nervous looking smile. 

Giving his friends short hugs and shorter goodbyes, Harry dismissed himself. Not bothering to throw her parents another glance else they might see through him.

Harry dissatisfied them with the way he left things. It didn’t take a detective for Harry to deduce that. But as he returned to muggle’s Kings Cross with his trolley, he came to appreciate the space they gave him over the past few weeks. After all, they hadn’t known a single individual who had suffered more hardship than the boy-who-can’t-die.

There was little false with the cop-out Harry presented. There hasn’t been a year that went by since his Hogwarts admission without his uncle pulling a fit in the car park of Kings Cross on the very topic.

On a typical pick up, they would “greet” him with an aggressive yank of a collar, forcing him to trip chest first into the handlebars of his trolley. Earning a hoot from Hedwig as she’s rattled in her cage.

Somehow, the changes transcended from his magical world as his uncle gestured to follow him. Tailing him through the main hall of Kings Cross at an awkward distance, he arrived at the car park. Not that Vernon helped by leaving the doors closed for him, allowing for some degree of normalcy between them.

He found Dudley leant on the boot of the familiar Vauxhall estate belonging to his uncle. Harry was somewhat pleased that his cousin had flushed out the walrus look he was taking after his father. Eyeing Harry’s approach, he popped open the boot, their eyes averting from one another. His behaviour ever dramatic with a display of displeasure to help him with his trunk.

After they had loaded his belongings into the boot, Dudley motioned to engage in one of his attacks on Harry, forcing their gazes to meet, his piercing green eyes burning into his blues.

This wasn’t the first time the two cousins had shared eye contact, but it was the first time that Dudley Dursley felt an unparalleled amount of emotion being produced from a pair of eyes. Dudley wasn’t one to cower from bullying his “freak cousin,” but he was one with a heart, and for once his heart won.  
  
Harry didn’t know whether to be shocked or pleasantly surprised when he saw his cousin pull back and manoeuvre around the family car to duck into the passenger seat.  
  


* * *

  
The Boy-Who-Lived-Again still couldn’t fathom what had happened to the Dursley’s as a single day passed since his return to Little Whinging. Harry had been expecting his cousin to act up multiple times over by now, but it never came.

Nor was he summoned to the kitchen, or accused of pulling some “magical freakishery” as an excuse for their own mistakes. With a beating or an alternative punishment following after.

Instead, they’d left him alone. A dream come true for Harry Potter. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder why his accommodation hasn’t returned to the hell it once was. Reason would point towards Dumbledore’s doing since the Headmaster has established a habit of pulling strings from the darkness; helping from afar. What muggle would reject a request from one of the most influential individuals in the Magical World? People know power, magic or muggle.

Though Harry would soon find out that life wasn’t as complicated as he’d thought. 

When he reached the last step on the staircase, he almost bumped into Dudley with his head down. 

“Whoa, sorry,” said Dudley as he stepped back and out of his way.

Harry’s had it. He put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder, which wasn’t much of a handful as he’d expected.

“What’s going on Dudley?” The question was eating away at him since Kings Cross. He saw him give a nervous shuffle as if they ventured into a topic that didn’t involve insults and degradation for the first time.

“I’m tired, Potter,” said Dudley, careful to spit his last name in a familiar disgust. Harry’s eyebrows furrowed as he saw past his ruse, well aware of the stammer before saying his surname as if he intended to call him by his first. He didn’t want to let it slide, but the thundering footsteps that could only belong to his uncle were approaching from the sitting room.

Shoving past Harry with lacklustre energy, his uncle acknowledged, “Boy.” 

Hiking up the stairs with heavier than normal steps, Harry eyed the walrus. He felt no worry with his uncle’s behaviour. It was not the first time he was “expressive”.

Fortunately, this bout of aggression did not arise from any of Harry’s doing, he assumed. Turning back to Dudley, Harry asked.

“What’s wrong with your dad?”

“His drill company, Grunnings, took a hit when a competitor gained a lot of recognition over the past few months. He’s been working his arse off to keep Grunnings in the standings.”

Never mind the two had a two piece conversation that did not include magic or insults, Harry was most surprised by the well-constructed sentences that left his cousin’s lips. His surprise did not go unnoticed as Dudley displayed his own expression of frustration.

“I’m not stupid, Harry.” At this, Harry rose an eyebrow. Dudley chose this moment to take his leave, and rather than go up the stairs like he’d wanted, he left through the front door, shutting it behind him, leaving Harry alone in the foyer of Privet Drive Number Four.

It was the morning, give or take around seven to eight rather than the usual five to six. A bad habit Harry fell into as the year came to a close following the tragic end of the Triwizard tournament. He recalled the familiar scent of sausages and eggs on Dudley’s breath, which led Harry to believe the last of the family resided in the kitchen. Further confirmed by the sound of running water and scrubbing.

Hoping his luck remained, he entered through the glazed door, passing by his latched, former bedroom: the cupboard under the stairs, now housing his trunk.

Petunia Dursley. He could never see that woman baring any biological relation to his mother. She stood like a bleached stick behind the sink, using her bony claws to grip into the sponge, brushing against the face of a greased plate with vigour.

The entire household was on edge, no doubt because of the rise of stress in his uncle. For as long as he could remember, whenever his uncle got moody, it often impacted the entire household. And whenever Harry was home, that impact would come in his direction, and he had the scars to prove it.

His entrance through the kitchen door caught his aunt’s attention, albeit the wrong kind.

“Dudders, it’s best if you just leave mother alone right now,” she said, closing the tap and grabbing the towel hanging on the edge of the counter. When she turned around to face him, he expected the look of shock to plague her gaunt face.

“Yes. Not Dudley,” Harry announced, “He’d just left a minute ago.”

She acknowledged him with a brief hmm before proceeding to ignore him by returning to her washing. Harry reached around to grab a bowl drying on the rack, intending to get something to eat this morning. He was not in the mood to fight with any of the Dursley’s, but nor was he in the mood of being pushed around by them anymore.

Harry threw the idea around when he was a child, but the Harry that returned from Hogwarts this year was not a child anymore. What kind of child goes through near-death experiences on a yearly basis?

Not to mention he played an instrumental role in the return of the Dark Lord and was both witness and victim to the three Unforgivable Curses. He watched a friend’s death and was inches from it himself, from the wand of the most feared wizard of his lifetime.

Harry shivered at the thought of the cruciatus curse being cast on him once more. Most described it as being stabbed by a thousand hot knives. Somehow, that blurred compared to what he felt at the mercy of Lord Voldemort himself.

“You break that bowl and Vernon’ll snap boy,” Petunia cautioned.

Harry hadn’t noticed that he’d been holding the plate in his hands, gripped tighter in his palms than he’d ever had with a snitch.

“Don’t tell me you’re having issues too, freak,” she spat. Harry had already taken his seat and planned to make himself some breakfast. Plans don’t like going according to plan for Harry Potter. Sometimes even the simplest of one’s goes awry.

“Excuse me?” He knew it would incite her, but he said it anyway.

“Excuse you?” Harry sat with his back to her, but he knew the sound of the water being shut and a quick towelling off indicated an impending outburst.

“Vernon is at risk of losing to some young upstart. You cannot dare say you have issues with your teenage, hormonal rubbish,” Petunia hissed, seething through her teeth.

Harry stood up with force, sending the chair back to hit the wall, making a mediocre crashing noise, causing some dishes on the rack and in the cupboards to rattle.

“The man who killed my mother, Your Sister, damn near killed me a month ago. My blood...” He yanked on his sleeve to reveal a bandage around his forearm, a deep red and brown inking the fabric, “...was used to revive him. He tortured me for a solid five minutes, at the mercy of one of the most dangerous individuals in the world.” 

Dark magic prevented the laceration from Pettigrew from being healed with healing magic, forcing the mediwitches to resort to stitches. Not to mention the lack of numbing charms since his departure of Hogwarts left him in pain daily, 

Harry attempted to control himself, but his words turned into bellows that sent Petunia shrinking, her face paling. He took it down a few notches as he descended into territory he never wished to return to.

“Worst of all, I watched a friend die right before my very eyes, all because I wasn’t selfish enough to grab a bloody cup.” Harry was now the one seething, with furious breaths leaving his lips, towering over a Petunia Dursley. She was gaping, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, trying to find the words to construct an attack towards him.

“Another one of your childish lies and outbursts no doubt,” she said in her attempt to maintain control in the conversation, but her stammering and stuttering only convinced Harry that she accepted his words to some degree.  
  


* * *

  
The rest of the day passed by undisturbed. Harry felt blessed that his uncle didn’t come marching downstairs to give him a beating. He remembered Petunia’s last words before she too went upstairs about being thankful that Vernon is a heavy sleeper. Not that it was news to him. It took a long time for Vernon to notice there was a flying car, exhaust guzzling and the lot hovering outside the house a single bedroom away.

Apparently, Vernon turned in early today because he’d worked the night earlier after dropping him and Dudley off at home. Harry tried not to feel sorry for his uncle, but his good-heartedness continued to be a pain in his arse. He resolved to be less of a disturbance around the house. Which meant spending more of his time either in his room or outside. Abiding by the simple rule of old and acting like he does not exist.

In his earlier years, he didn’t have the freedom of leaving the house, and most of his life, the cupboard. After having blown up his Aunt Marge and taking his leave from the number four, he inadvertently earned the privilege of leaving the house. Vernon clarified when he returned after his third year, telling him he could only leave the house in the early and late hours. Practically, the hours in which there won’t be anyone to see him enter or leave. Was it the result of fear mongering? Harry would never know.

It was only a couple minutes past the dusk of the day when Harry found himself sitting on his bedside, twirling his wand in his fingertips, unbeknownst to him that the tip was emitting a slight glow. The mirror detracted him into staring into his emerald eyes. Not in admiration like most would, but in vexation. His thoughts were partaking an aggressive conflict in the battleground that was his mind. His heart versus his mind: one side claiming it was his fault for not doing anything, while the other reasoned he couldn’t have done anything.

He could have warned Cedric more coherently, could have saved his life rather than moaning and clutching his scar and his abdomen in pain. He could have stopped Wormtail long before he cast the curse. Having been displaced to a scenery that was so unfamiliar, to a graveyard that was never mentioned in the third task briefing, they should have grabbed the portkey once again and left rather than indulging in the very curiosity that kills cats.

Harry Potter, the only student in all of Hogwarts that should be able to identify danger in a snap, wasn’t able to put two and two together until it was too late. Not only was he slow, he was stupid. Unaware. Lazy. Distracted.

Weak.

His heart and mind found disagreements on almost all fronts, but one. Harry closed his eyes, hoping to remember it.

“Change...“ Harry whispered.

_The third year, during one of the Golden Trio’s study sessions at one of the secluded tables in the Hogwarts Library. Ronald was sleeping with a History of Magic textbook overturned, its pages lying against the orange bush of hair on the back of his head while his nose crushed against the wood of the table. Hermione, on a pronounced tangent, had buried herself in another book. Harry — trying not to pull a Ron — was trying his best to keep up with her. They’re supposed to be studying the Goblin Rebellions. Specifically, Yardley Platt’s contribution to several of the uprisings during the 15th to 16th centuries. This was not that._

_“Harry,” Hermione nudged, giving no second thought to the hopeless cause Ron was, “Listen to this from Ovidius.”_

_Harry, not knowing who Ovidius is or was, tuned-in anyway to satisfy her._

_“It goes ‘Tempora mutantur... nos et mutamur in illis,’.” He only stared back, somewhat amused that she would have thought he was fluent in Latin._

_“Right...” Came Harry’s response._

_“Yes. In English, it is ‘Times change, and we change with them,’.”_

Harry grinned at the memory because he soon followed up with the chuckled question of “how the bloody hell is that related”. In which she answered with a blush and stated it had caught her interest, and an urge to stop judging her when he gave her the eyes. Eyes she described as the “it’s another one of Hermione’s crazy moments”.

He never denied it.

“Nos et mutamur in illis,” Harry murmured as he opened his eyes, “It’s time to grow up Harry.”

As if making noise would help hammer the idea into his head, he slapped his wand on his bedside table. 

More needed to be said. He needed to change and he wanted it to be ingrained into his mind. Harry was tired of the empty promises and commitments he made for himself growing up. That no one else would have to sacrifice themselves for him after what his parents and Ron did, but then Hermione got petrified the year after. That he would protect Hermione after what happened in his second year, yet it was her that protected him a year later. Finally, he told Cedric before they entered the maze that he had his back.

“I’m not a bloody child anymore. I lost the right to be called one when I got Cedric killed. This is my fight, no one else’s.”

He found himself drawn to the photo frame at his bedside, his mother and father dancing in the autumn breeze.

“It has been my whole life.”

He knew what others would say about his decision. Hermione would throw a fit. Ron would agree, but in a lighter manner. Molly would say he’s throwing away the life his parents sacrificed themselves for. Dumbledore would say he needs to be protected and hidden away, not on the front lines like he wants to be. Sirius would begin with a witty joke before descending into serious ground. The same would go for Remus.

If they were anything about the Marauders he knew, they would be proud of him and side with him as he takes control of his life and commits it to putting the safety of others first and sparing others the fate his parents had suffered at the hands of Lord Voldemort. He didn’t believe in destiny, divination had ruined that for him in the third year, but there was still a lot he believed in, nonetheless.

“It’s my responsibility.”

His mind was already racing with ideas, plans for the summer to help him grow: to help him improve; to make him stronger. So that when he returns to Hogwarts and is within his rights to use magic, he would be ready to train. To become more than a schoolboy who knows only how to fly and disarm.

When he’d finally left the rabbit hole, he was standing in the middle of his bedroom. Steadfast, a single tear streamed down his cheek to drop beside the pool of crimson that his clenched fist littered.

“This is for you.”  
  


* * *

  
The skies were ominous, plagued with grey clouds. He was no longer surrounded by violent winds, instead, an eerie sensation that rivals the eye of a storm. The only light that his eyes could see was a few metres from him: the translucent trophy with a bright white and blue glow lying on its side. 

It wasn’t the same hair-raising warmth of being trapped in a hedge maze filled with evil. Instead, it was chilling, the air stale and filthy. The shift in temperature making him shiver through his long sleeves. He could only explain the rapid change in surroundings through the familiar tug the portkey gave during the Quidditch world cup. Lying on his chest, heaving, he put his hands flat on the ground to push himself up, but collapsed into the foreign dirt in exhaustion and pain.

The clouds parted, allowing only the slightest of moonlight to give vision to the incapacitated Gryffindor. Harry’s efforts to push himself up was once again met with a deep, stinging pain above his left hip, inciting a cry as he fell back onto his elbow.

He glanced down, using his other hand to brush away the wet and dirty bangs in front of his glasses. Then bringing his fingers to his eyes to rid the sweat and dirt around them. Curious and idiotic, he touched around the wound that has been troubling him so, making him hiss.

A branch, from the rapidly deteriorating maze upon his exit, impaled him through his side. The branch wasn’t large, but remaining in his body and sticking out at two sides wasn’t doing any good for his body. This wound wasn’t like any Quidditch injury he’d sustained as it remained in constant pain after having realised its existence, causing him to quake and crow in pain.

“Harry!” The voice shouted, echoing in the caverns of his mind. But before he could face it, his eyes snapped open, staring at the blurry ceiling of his room.

 _It wasn’t that bad today_...thought Harry.

Routinely, he shoved his hand under his pillow and pulled a holly wand out to place it on the bedside table. Then grabbing his glasses from the foot of said table, again. 

He had the bedside lamp taped down and set every loose object face down in the bedroom. A precautionary habit he had to live with if he had any plans to sleep. Harry hadn’t forgotten the scene a few nights ago when Petunia woke him up, as he’d woken her up with his screams, and a collection of falling objects.

“Boy, you better shut it before I-, Vernon shuts you up,” was the words he remembered leaving her whispering lips. Perhaps this morning he was lucky and he’d kept his mouth shut during his slumber.

Harry took another glance at the mirror of his shirtless figure. He had taken to the habit of sleeping without his pyjamas thanks to the influence of his dorm mates Ron and Dean. Something about confidence in your body building confidence in yourself. And allegedly, confidence was an attractive trait. It didn’t prevent him from feeling itchy..

With his fingertips, he caressed the bare skin above the left of his hip. It was a little numb, but there was no scar, unlike his bandaged forearm. Self-conscious about his scars, he slipped into something more comfortable for him and the eyes of others, before making his way down the stairs. Taking careful steps not to make anymore noise than he’d already made that morning.

He had Hogwarts, and most of all, Quidditch to thank for forging his body from a lanky boy into a more acceptable and slim teenager. If Wood hadn’t been so gruelling in his training sessions, he wouldn’t know how to take care of himself physically in the downtime last year. Though it would take a lot more time and effort to recover the years of weight and muscle that he could have gained if it hadn’t been for the Dursley’s style of accommodation.

“Oi, Potter,” called Dudley from behind. Harry was in the middle of doing his laces, but it did surprise him that Dudley was awake at all, given it was half past five in the morning.

“Morning Dudley. Sorry if I woke you.” Harry had already had gone an entire week and a half without being interrupted thanks to his stealthy exit strategies, but he had little expectations to be successful all the time.

“You didn’t,” replied Dudley. Harry stood up, satisfied with the tightness of his shoes. Turning to face his cousin, he raised an eyebrow, surprised for the second time that morning.

Dudley had dressed himself in long sports shorts and a grey t-shirt. If Harry didn’t know better, it would seem that Dudley intended to join him.

“Mind if I join you?” Harry, now bewildered, stood for a moment, silent. He ran the scenarios through his head: it might have been a trap he’s set up with his mates, or maybe he wanted to bring Harry far away to dispose of his body. Pondering for a few seconds, Harry concluded that even Dudley wasn’t that out of it to form such plans. He swept over his shorts to check the state of his wand before considering. Giving Dudley the benefit of the doubt, he nodded while rubbing the back of his head.

“Yeah all right. Just keep up,” Harry’s voice above a whisper. With that, he turned around and hopped into a gentle jog, slow enough to allow Dudley to catch up.

The dawn of Surrey wasn’t the greatest sight to behold, but it was better than the view of an urban setting. Here, people are granted the benefits of the countryside. The smell of trees and a gentle summer breeze, occasionally accompanied by the horrible England weather of abysmal cloudiness and rain. Although the benefits pale in comparison to Yorkshire or Devon.

Harry could barely feel his feet as they pushed him forward. The feeling had become so familiar that the mornings were habitual and mechanical.

Much to the dismay for Dudley, Harry had been furthering his jogs until he had a consistent 7-or-so kilometre distance around the neighbourhood. The effect was apparent in the heaving behind Harry as they crossed what Harry knew to be the first quarter point, the playground at Magnolia Road.

“We’ll hold up here,” Harry called over his shoulder. 

He barely heard Dudley’s breathless, “Thank God.”

Dudley took a seat on the sidewalk by the roundabout, falling onto his backside. Harry followed suit and sat beside him, questions prepared.

“Why d’you join me, Dudley?” Harry asked. 

Dudley responded with a “Huh?” Inclining Harry to repeat his question. His head clouded by exhaustion.

“Why did you decide to join me this morning, Dudley?” His cousin heaved a breath as he processed the question. Dudley expected the question, but it wasn’t one he had mustered enough courage to answer just yet.

“I guess it can’t be as simple as saying I just wanted to get a good workout in?” Dudley mused.

“No, not really. You could have gone alone and not with a freak.” Harry furrowed his brows, confused when he caught Dudley’s wince when he spat freak.

“Look, Harry,” he paused. Harry could tell what he was trying to say was difficult as he kept looking down to the dirt beneath his feet, a motion Ron often pulled when he came to apologise to Hermione several times over the years, and to him just last year after the first task.

“I’m trying to change. We’re blood, I should have said I’m sorry long ago. Sorry that I hadn’t done this earlier,” Dudley sighed, relieved he’d gotten it out. Harry was coincidentally relieved. He wasn’t the only one who wanted to change. He could relish in the fact he wasn’t alone for once at the household. “I didn’t know any better when I was younger, but I should have stopped when the beatings started so long ago. It’s been too long that my family has treated you like shite.”

He took another breath as he raised his head.

“You didn’t deserve that, and you don’t deserve a cousin that allows it.”

Harry took his time, absorbing what his cousin has said. He wasn’t a lie detector, but his words seemed more genuine than most of what he was fed last year.

“I still remember that night, nearly a decade from now. When we were little. Knowing you as I do now, I understand how it’d happened. You ended up on the roof again.” Harry shivered, knowing where this led. “Dad, he lost it. I know now it must’ve been an accident cause you’d never want to do anything to upset anyone. Like the year before last with Aunt Marge,” Dudley shifted in place once more.

“After Dad had gotten you down. He tossed you into the living and told mum and me to leave. I can still remember your screaming, Harry. Your pleads...I’m sorry, Harry.”

The memory had been with him since he was young, it was the reason he’d struggled to step up to Vernon until his Hogwarts admission.

“What sparked this?”

“Dad,” Harry raised an eyebrow. “I’m his son, and I love him. But I won’t let myself be anything like him.”

A moment of hesitation revealed itself as a caught breath out of Dudley’s mouth. There was more to the story than he’d like to tell. The topic was sombre enough, and Harry didn’t want to push.

“That’s good. The world can only handle one Vernon Dursley.” The two shared an unexpected laugh on the roundabout, a comfort building between the former enemies.

“We’re cousins, Harry. We’re family. Whether they like it or not. Magical or not,” Dudley stood up and extended his hand to Harry. It embarrassed Harry to feel his tear ducts act up. In a desperate attempt to counter his emotional buildup, he grabbed Dudley’s hand and shot to his feet. Wincing quietly as he’s pulled up, fully expecting the stinging in his forearm. Harry then pulled Dudley into a hug, which he gladly reciprocated.

Instead of preventing the tears, it felt as if they were being squeezed out of him. It was a rough hug, but Hermione still topped him with the adjective bone-crushing. 

Harry finally pulled out of the hug and turned towards the sidewalk.

“That’s a long enough break. Let’s go,” Harry mustered as he got back into a jog and resumed his planned route.

Behind him, Dudley smiled.  
  


* * *

  
“I can’t believe you do this every morning,” wheezed Dudley, bent over and panted with his hands on his knees.

Harry nodded, lifting a glass of water to his lips while his free hand rests at the edge of the counter. Unlike Dudley, his red quidditch tee maintained its original shade of colour. Dudley’s shirt selection for the morning, meanwhile, was not so lucky. Drenched under thick coats of sweat, the core victims being the pits, chest, and lower back.

The thirty-minute run allowed them to get home while Petunia was in the shower and Vernon still in his slumber.

Dudley reached for the blinds above the kitchen sink, rising them and allowing a warming glow from the risen sun to grace the Dursley household. Whatever peace accumulated would soon be diminished with the unannounced entry of Petunia Dursley. Her annoyingly bushy-curled hair was so unkempt it rivalled Harry’s. Which reminded the young man he needed a haircut.

“Morning mum,” said Dudley, grabbing a pitcher of apple juice from the fridge.

“Morning Aunt Petunia,” followed Harry as he tried to remain cool and composed. Two things Petunia was struggling with this morning. It was, in fact, the first time she’d seen Dudley go without an opportunity to attack Harry verbally.

The matter wasn’t brought up, but rather a very familiar command.

“You’d best be getting breakfast ready before Vernon shows up.”

Before Harry could respond, Dudley placed the pitcher on the table and spoke up.

“Don’t worry, mum. I’m working on it.”

Dudley appeared to be full of surprises this summer, according to Harry. Slightly more so that Dudley knew how to cook.

“You, sweetums? Don’t be foolish, let the boy do it.”

“Could you give me a hand, Harry?” Dudley asked, ignoring his mother, his eyes pleading. Dudley hadn’t actually known how to cook. 

He spent more time being the one that’s fed than the one to feed.

“Right.”

Petunia left the kitchen, stunned and speechless, in a cross between infuriated and anxious.

The interaction for the next 15 minutes manifested itself into more of a lesson than a cooperative cooking session. Which meant Harry had to do most of the work, but not without teaching him along the way, and getting him to do the simple repetitive tasks like cracking a few eggs after him.

Dudley tried his best to keep up with Harry as he seemed to move at an astonishing pace, the result of being berated to cook faster by the Dursleys over the years. He was amazed at his skilful use of the spatula on one pan and tongs on another as he manoeuvred around the kitchen grabbing various items like the butter, cooking oil and spices.

Sooner than he’d anticipated, there were three plates of peppered eggs with sausages and bacon laid out on the dinner table. Dudley, who felt pleased with how the morning came out to be, took a seat at the table. He was left confused when Harry motioned to leave the kitchen.

“Where you going?” Dudley asked.

“To my room. I reckon I’ve some studying to get started on.”

“You’re not going to eat?”

“They’re not meant for me, Dudley.” After feeling like an idiot for not counting the plates, Dudley frowned.

“You taught me a bit about cooking, I’ll teach you a bit about sandwich making.” At this, Harry was definitely interested. Often when Dudley got hungry, and Petunia was busy, he’d put together a sandwich. By now, Harry would probably be correct in assuming he’d be pretty good at it.

He watched as Dudley grabbed bread, a butter knife, and a bottle of brown sauce from the fridge. Due to the simplicity of sandwich making, the Dursley’s hadn’t even considered teaching him.

He placed a slice of bread on a plate and scooped up some bacon and eggs off of his own plate to place on the slice. Then he took the brown sauce and poured thin lines on another slice of bread. He concluded by putting the two slices together and handing the masterpiece to Harry on a plate before taking a seat.

“It might not be cooking, but it’s an art nonetheless.”

Harry inspected it, curious. He’d never in his entire time at the Dursley’s, or at Hogwarts, seen or eaten a sandwich like this one.

Taking a bite out of it, his mood lightened. It was delicious and nothing like he’d ever tasted for breakfast at Hogwarts. The way the bread was complimented with various meats alongside the fantastic brown sauce giving it a whole new flavour.

“Good, eh?” Dudley asked smugly, knowing that the expression of delight on Harry’s face was an answer. Harry couldn’t help that this newfound connection with Dudley was having an effect on him, but before it could progress, a loud conversation approaching from the staircase interrupted the two.

On queue, the giant whale bearing the title of Head of the Dursley family came barging through the kitchen door. The loud bang as the door swung and hit the wall made Dudley jump in his chair while Harry turned in his, placing the sandwich on a plate.

“What is the meaning of this, boy?” the man bellowed, sure to allow his mouth to release an onslaught of saliva. Harry had sidestepped into the living room to answer his question with a question.

“What’ve I done, Uncle Vernon?”

Vernon seethed at his calm response. He stepped to the side, moving his gargantuan frame so that he could point at his son.

“You’ve magicked my boy, that’s what you’ve done you ungrateful freak.”

“I ‘magicked’ Dudley? I’m not sure that’s even a word, even in my world. Maybe bewitched is what you’re thinking of.” His sassy response only further angered the whale that his face began to perspire and reach a darker shade of red.

“You let upon your freakish magic on my son, and I demand that you make him right!” He shouted at a decibel loud enough to wake up our nearest neighbours. Surely enough, Petunia tapped on his shoulder and gestured to lower his volume. Vernon’s displeasure was announced through a low groan.

“I hadn’t done anything to Dudley.”

“Bollocks! You’d gone and forced him to cook. Even have him make one of his sandwiches for you. Don’t you lie to me, boy!”

“First off, how might I have done that at all. You remember the last time I’d done magic, I’d nearly lost my magic. I’m not of age to use magic outside of school,” his explanation, albeit true, was not enough to calm the beast.

Just when Vernon was about to spit another one of his silly arguments, Dudley stepped in.

“Dad. Harry didn’t do anything, please stop it.”

“Dudley, don’t you hear what you’re saying? Harry has done something to you-” he reached over and gripped Dudley’s shoulder uncomfortably tight, “you need to snap out of it!” he ended angrily, shaking his son.

Dudley pushed his hands away and stood across him at eye level.

“Dad! Harry did not do a thing. I’m giving Harry the respect he deserves. I’m tired of you two treating him like dirt.” Vernon stepped back at his lash.

“I should have stood up to you so long ago. Now leave Harry alone.” Vernon’s red face did not fade away and returned to give Harry one hardened stare before grabbing a plate of food from the table set for him and leaving through the door, his steps booming up the hollow stairs. If he was any heavier, he’d fall into his old bedroom, Harry joked within with a slight grin.

Petunia remained in the dining room and took a seat quietly at the table to before picking at her own food. She would have joined Vernon if she hadn’t had the habit to only eat at the lower levels, to not dirty the rooms above.

Harry approached Dudley, who was calming himself down by the doorway where he’d just had his first confrontation with his father. He placed a hand on his shoulder, “You didn’t need to stand up for me, Dudley,” Harry said.

“No, I did. Things need to change around here, even if it starts like this.” Harry could tell Dudley was troubled by what he’d said to Vernon; it might have also been a given that it won’t be the first time he’ll have to do it.

“Thanks, mate.”  
  


* * *

  
Harry thought that growing up with parents that spoilt you in your childhood, your ability to spend money would far exceed your ability to save. The contrary appeared to exist with Dudley Dursley.

Dudley received a generous amount of money from his dad for an allowance, and living in one of the northernmost counties in Surrey, did not give him many places to spend it. Although, he did not get off to a good start when he’d spend his money on sweets and the like when he got the chance. As he grew up, he saw the benefits of saving his money for when he’d finally get to town, or to London via the railway where more options made themselves known. 

Such an occurrence was when Harry and Dudley took a brief bus ride from Little Whinging to Staines, where Dudley introduced him to a cafe on Mustard Mill Road. Harry soon learnt that this was a place that he and his friends often went after school.

Harry sat across from Dudley at the cafe, and they ordered some nicely priced Mediterranean foods. Harry hadn’t been outside of Privet Drive during his summers, with the notable exception of the last week of summer before the start of his third year.

“Thanks for buying, Dudley. I’ll pay you back sometime. It’s been a while since I’ve been to the bank.”

“No need, this is on me,” Dudley said.

“You needn’t spoil me mate, I’m paying you back.”

“Suit yourself.”

Harry took a look around the restaurant. He often wondered what the towns and cities of England looked like, but he never had the chance. He’d reckon that he’s seen more of magical Britain than muggle through Diagon Alley, Hogwarts and Hogsmeade.

“What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?”

“You know, here. Staines.”

He hadn’t known much about Staines other than that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia often came here to do the groceries or shopping. Harry could remember it vividly as he would be released from the cupboard under the stairs to help them carry the bags from the car to the kitchen.

“It’s just a small, simple town. Some stores, a few restaurants and cafes like this one. Lots of scenery, and the Thames passes right through.”

They both took a moment to look out the window to observe the Staines Bridge and the few who were crossing at this time of day.

They’d finished their daily exercise and let a few hours pass before deciding today would be a good day to get out of the house and head into the nearby town.

Little Whinging wasn’t popular for having anything more than homes and schools. Staines was the destination for anyone in Little Whinging to go do anything.

“Alright then. Anything special about this place other than you come here with your friends?” Dudley flinched, as if he’d been caught red-handed when in reality it was an innocent question.

Dudley’s mouth parted to speak but closed when his name was called from over Harry’s shoulder. He shot up, sending the table shaking, which, with Harry’s Seeker’s reflexes, held down with both hands planted as he turned around to the female voice behind him.

“Ava!” He returned across the cafe, drawing a few looks from the other customers. Dudley approached a redheaded girl who, coincidentally, was dressed in a work uniform associated with the very cafe they were eating at.

He overheard her saying through a thick Scottish accent that she hadn’t seen him in a week, only to hear Dudley reply in kind. A smile fell upon Harry’s face as he watched the two chat, smiling at one another. He averted his gaze and brought a recently delivered cup of tea to his lips, half-expecting Dudley to return not alone.

“Here he is,” came Dudley’s voice. Harry turned around to face the two standing next to him, Dudley appearing with an unusual amount of glow upon him. Up close, the Scottish lady’s beauty did not go without notice. It was odd, finding himself comparing her to Ginny Weasley, the only other redheaded girl his age he knew, of whom’s beauty paled in comparison to Ava.

“You must be Harry?” she asked, holding her hand out, her accent far more grounded than he’d last heard.

“One and only,” Harry replied. His first instinct was to pull a Sirius and kiss her knuckles in greeting, but what he could only assume was his inner Remus told him to relax and shake her hand.

“I’m Ava, Dudley told me a bit about you.”

“Did he now?” Looking to Dudley with raised brows and wide eyes. He could only wonder if he’d told her about his magical properties. Instead of worry about it, he proceeded, “Well he hadn’t mentioned you before.”

“I wouldn’t expect him to, and honestly,” she bent down to a whisper, “I’d prefer it stays that way.” Harry caught her insinuation without a need for thought. 

She was his little secret.

“I’m sorry by the way.”

“For?”

“Dudley told me about your parents,” she looked down at the ground at her flats, “I know what it feels like, to lose your parents at a young age you know.”

Harry now felt uncomfortable, leaving the two standing beside him as they ventured into a delicate topic. He gestured for the two to take a seat across from him, and thankfully they complied.

“I grew up here, in Staines with me gran after me maw and da got lost at sea. That was almost a decade from now.” He could tell she was trying to suppress her Scottish accent to make her sentences coherent to Harry, though she hadn’t known that he’d had a Scottish quidditch captain since his first year and that his head of house was Scottish. He’d had more than enough time to learn how to decipher what they were saying.

Though it was only polite to remain quiet at a time like this despite the question of how one gets lost at sea digging at him.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t make our introduction so sour,” Ava said, letting out a sniffle while Dudley rubbed her back.

“It’s fine. I’m glad you told me. I think we’re better off knowing we both have something like that in common. It’s nice knowing we’re not alone.”

“Yeah,” she said, looking over at Dudley. Before the moment could descend into awkwardness, a steward came over with fresh sandwiches and salad. Ava bade them both goodbye and returned to work, no doubt spurred on by the look from her colleague.

Harry had a few things to say, a few questions to ask, but the need for food superseded the need for answers. 

Eventually, having ploughed through a foot long roast beef sandwich and a Caesar salad, the two were to some degree, ready to go back to talking about “serious” topics.

“So...Ava.”

“Yeah...”

Harry scratched his jaw and nodded out into the distance.

“Scottish Girls, eh?” Harry asked with a grin as he took a sip of his tea.

“It’s not like that,” he replied, chuckling.

“I get why you didn’t tell me about her.”

Silence.

“It was her that sparked this change?” Harry asked, knowing full the answer.

Dudley nodded and let his head hang, as if shameful. He felt he had every right to be. Owing his soul-searching journey to a lady.

“Who would’ve thought?”

Dudley raised his head.

“The heart of a man strummed alive, by a woman,” Harry continued. Dudley went to drop his head once more until Harry placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Lucky bloke you,” said Harry with a smile, giving him a friendly pat on the cheek.  
  


* * *

  
Today was a normal Sunday. The morning run went without a hitch, Harry and Dudley now capable of running ten kilometres without a break. They’ve both come a long way since their confrontation two weeks ago. It was surprising to the two how much their bodies could change with a decent and consistent workout.

Vernon had lost his will to explode at Harry since his own son opposed him. Petunia shrunk into a middle ground as what was left of her morals challenged her left and right. To Harry, it felt like a wave of peace at Number Four.

It was midday, and Vernon was relaxing in the living room watching the telly with his wife on the couch beside him. Dudley had left to meet with Ava in town an hour ago, leaving Harry on his own.

He occupied himself in his room, studying transfiguration, with the fullest of intentions of working on the essay assigned to him at the end of the year.

Despite the tragedy at the end of the third task, Hogwarts professors had to maintain professionalism and felt it fitting to assign homework over the summer, except for Herbology, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and much to Harry’s surprise, Potions.

He had buried himself in his textbook, in the second branch of transfiguration, Vanishment, when he was yanked out by the roar downstairs.

“Boy! Get down here!”

Harry, no longer startled by his loud summons, obliged and left his room.

He was blessed by the sight of Vernon Dursley clutching his hand, bent over a cream-coloured letter, glaring at it. His aunt was behind the whale, staring at the envelope with equal intensity.

“What is the meaning of this?” Vernon barked, shoving his palm in front of his face as if to show something. Harry squinted into it, noticing nothing in his pudgy hand while also making sure he was out of his striking range. He looked towards his wife, not relying on Vernon for answers.

“The envelope. It b-burned in his hands,” Petunia stammered.

Harry only looked at the envelope on the floor in amusement. Perhaps a prank from the twins, to burn the hands of any Muggle who handles it.

Although, the quality of the envelope intrigued him. It had the property of luxury and properness. The Dursleys backed away when Harry approached to kneel and inspect it, cognisant of its apparent danger. 

It had an elegant, feather-like border around its rectangular frame. At its centre was his name, Harry James Potter, and beneath it, the address of the Dursleys, similar to the letters he received from Hogwarts regarding his admission, though those had the bonus address of the “Cupboard under the stairs”.

“Your mail cursed me, it did. Burned me when I’d tried to open it,” Vernon snarled.

Harry chuckled.

“You find that funny boy?!” he exclaimed, dropping his exaggeration of pain in his hand as he stood tall as if ready to belt Harry.

Harry bent over and picked up the envelope.

“You weren’t cursed, Uncle. Maybe you shouldn’t be snooping around in other people’s mail,” he chuckled, waving the envelope at him. Harry took a glance at the rose red seal, which bore symbols reminiscent of the ancient runes he’d seen Hermione studying, surrounding a small coat of arms that had several unidentifiable symbols, all except a fleur-de-lis.

“Funny how a bunch of symbols can throw you off an envelope,” Harry mused, turning around to head up the stairs.

“Don’t you turn your back on me.” Harry stopped midway up the stairs, “You told me your freaks wouldn’t be sending you any posts this summer, no less on a Sunday.”

“I don’t know what to say to you, Uncle Vernon. I haven’t a clue who sent this letter.” That was his last words before he retreated to his room, eager to open the mysterious envelope.

He swung the door back, hard enough to shut but not hard enough to make a jarring sound. Hedwig gave a bright hoot at his arrival. Even she could sense his happiness. Though, the joy soon died out as he expected the worst.

What if it were a letter from Mr Diggory himself, calling him out as a murderer?

What if it were the news asking for his details on the night, which would only be twisted into something worse?

What if it were from Dumbledore saying someone else had died for him?

He was on the verge of tossing the envelope in the bin, but his will to change said other wise. Taking one last glance at the unfamiliar seal, he tore it open and pulled a folded letter from its confines.

Written beautifully on the back of the folded letter:

_From Fleur_

Strange wasn’t the word he could use to describe the letter. It wasn’t a strong enough word to fit the occurrence. He remembered Fleur as a fellow champion, the older sibling to the girl he pulled from the lake, student to the French school he felt tired of trying and failing, to pronounce, and a Veela that called him a “leetle boy”.

Harry felt a twinge of annoyance in remembering being called such a degrading term. Even to this day it stung. He had gone through so much more than any of the champion could fathom, yet Fleur dared to call him “leetle”.

His anger was misguided. Flared in the mishmash that was being the false Hogwarts champion.

The last time he’d talked to Fleur was the end of the year before she boarded the carriage back to Beauxbatons. She’d given him a teary-eyed hug, as she proclaimed both her thanks and sorrows. He’d replied that he was sorry too, and that was the end of that.

It always amazed him, that he couldn’t feel the allure that was dragging Ron and every other hot blooded male in the school to her. Sure, he’d found her attractive, but he never felt that urge to go running at her without thought or reason.

Hermione was proud of him for having a mind, unlike the third member of their golden trio. Then another question arose in his head:

How did she get his address?

Reality came rushing back as Hedwig hooted once more. She too was eager to see what she wrote in the letter. Harry could never make sense of the amount of personality his owl had.

He flipped the letter over, to find paragraphs of astounding calligraphy across the paper.

_Dear Harry_

_I hope this letter finds you well. I think that is what you English say. This is Fleur Delacour if you cannot read my signature on the back. Hermione helped me in getting this letter to you. It took several owls from the Weasels to the Granger house for me to learn your address as it appears your best friend Ronald forgot your address. It took a long while of convincing, but they managed to see that my intentions are well._

_They told me it wasn’t safe to letter you this summer because of your ministry of magic and other sick people. But my family’s owl is special you see. We can not be tracked by your ministry, or it will be a violation of privacy on my family, which will be very bad for your ministry._

_So I finally got a letter to you! I wish I could have asked for your address at the end of the school year, but there was not enough time. How is your summer? What is it like living with muggles? How are you handling yourself? I hope you’re doing okay. I wonder if you’re wondering why I am sending you a letter at all._

_To put it easy, I want to talk to you. This is me being serious now. You saved my sister and me last year, and I hope to return the favour. I doubt that it would be easy for me to save you, but perhaps I could help you save yourself. There are what you English call “perks,” of being part of my family. I intend to abuse it to help you. I hope that doesn’t sound too menacing._

_I really do wish you accept this offer. But if not, I hope we can keep owling each other._

_You must thank my father for helping me write this letter. He is better at English than I am. If you do, and I hope you do reply, please give the letter to our owl._

_Amicalement,_

_Fleur Isabelle Delacour_

Harry couldn’t hold back the smile gracing his face. It’s not only been a long time since he’d gotten a letter from a friend, but he had gotten some good news. Someone wants to help him. Nobody from the magical world had even considered helping him at all this summer, no less even contacting him.

It was dangerous. Involving Fleur in his life would only put her in more danger than she was in when she was the champion for her school. He cared for his friends above anyone else, he would do anything in his power to keep them on a top shelf, away from danger and from him.

What she offered was vague but showered him with the benefits. The way she brings up her family, being able to provide him with assets to build him up into something he would need to be for the incoming war.

It was too good to pass up, but that was why he couldn’t take it. He didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve to be placed in an unnecessary position of risk for his benefit too.

That was saved for his enemies.

If ever he the chance to choose between the safety of his friends and the well-being of himself, he would choose the former every time.

Harry got off his bedside and took a seat by his desk and pulled his quill from the ink pot. He already had a spare piece of parchment on the table, ready for his next essay, but that would have to wait.

_Dear Fleur,_

_I’m glad I received your letter. I’m doing fine. My summer here has been a lot better than what it’s been in the past. My cousin and I have become good friends, and things are looking alright here. Though I cannot forget about the night in the graveyard. No words can express how I feel about what happened there and what happened to Cedric._

_I hope you’re doing well. How’s your little sister, Gabrielle, doing? How are you coping after everything? I know things must be hard after what happened in the tournament. But I know you’re strong. You are a champion._

_I’m sorry to tell you that I’ll have to decline your offer. Not in spite or anything of that sort. I just can’t have anyone else risking their lives trying to help me. Not after what happened last year. This is my fight, and I don’t want you to land smack in the middle of it when I can place you out of it altogether._

_This is what I believe, and I hope you understand. My friends matter too much to me._

_Thank you for taking the time to send me your letter. I know it must’ve been a struggle trying to get my address. Ron must have swooned when he received your owl. You can always rely on Hermione to get things right. I’d love to continue to owl you if I wouldn’t be too much of a bother._

_Thank you Mr Delacour for aiding your daughter in writing this letter._

_Au revouir_

_Harry James Potter_

Harry felt embarrassed at his attempt to say goodbye in French, but it was overshadowed by his writing of his name on the back. Taking it slow and accurate, he tried to make his name look presentable to the witch.

This never happened when he owled his friends. He often scrawled his name on the back and sent the letter on its way, never taking the time to make sure that his name or text was ever legible.

He folded the letter in thirds after waiting a while to let the ink dry and slipped it into an envelope. His envelope lacked the superiority Fleur’s had, but it was all that he had. The anxiety from sending the letter followed him down the stairs.

He shrugged off the unnecessary anxiousness and searched for Fleur’s owl. Before his hand reached the knob of the front door, he heard the brief flapping of wings.

Opening the door, he was surprised to find a snowy white owl that looked similar to Hedwig, on the doormat of Number Four. It was awkward to say the least for Harry Potter, to be eye to eye with an owl that looked just like his own, all for except the eyes, which were amber.

“You must be her owl,” Harry said, crouching down to rub against the neck of the owl. It acted as Hedwig does, rubbing back into his fingers. He pondered whether it was a twin brother or sister, or perhaps he was biased in thought towards all snowy white owls.

“Here’s the letter,” he gave the owl the letter and soon it was on its way. He couldn’t edit or take back what he wrote now that it was on its way to its recipient. The anxiety soon returned. He wondered if he sounded too rude or brash.

Meanwhile, in Paris, there was a French witch wrapped up in her duvet thinking the same thing.


	2. Midsummer Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Dudley's relationship develop and Fleur is introduced as the deuteragonist of this tale.

“You’ve never told me about her,” said Dudley, his elbows on the railing of the bridge. The only thing standing between him and falling into the river Thames.

“I haven’t really told you much about my magical life,” Harry retorted, his back on the same railing, beside his cousin.

“That too.”

“I can’t tell if you’re asking...?” Harry wondered as he counted the handful of illuminated lampposts across the bridge.

“I am,” Dudley turned around, giving Harry a pat on the back, “Well chop-chop then, spill.”

The pair had gone out to Staines again, this time in the later hours of the day. So rather than being in the soft embrace of sunlight, they were relaxing under the starry sky of South East England. A fringe benefit of living in the suburbs outside of Greater London.

Harry brought up the letter as he’d received it in Dudley’s absence. It appeared as an interesting topic at the time: receiving a letter from an older — not to mention beautiful — French witch during his summer. It only tapped on the subject of magic, a topic Harry wished to avoid altogether, for Dudley’s sake. He ignored the length the magical and muggle worlds were interwoven as he had the misguided intention of trying to divide the two for Dudley. Safety was what he thought he was guaranteeing his cousin the less they discussed magic, but less and nothing were synonymous in this light.

Perhaps not telling him the dangers of his world was a danger in and out of itself, Harry reasoned within. Even if it had to begin with a enchanting witch from France.

“Her name is Fleur,” Harry started, “She goes to a magical school in France, but I bet you’ve figured that out already.”

Dudley nodded, even though Harry wasn’t even facing him at this point. The Gryffindor was absorbed by the river down below, observing the intricate ripples caused by the underside stones of the bridge.

“When I’d gotten back from school, I had just finished taking part in a dangerous tournament alongside three others, Fleur included. One tournament, three schools, three tasks to complete. With ‘eternal glory’ as the prize.” Harry explained, trying to keep it simple.

“Three schools, yet four competitors?” he was glad Dudley picked up on it. It was easily something that would have flown over Ron’s head.

“Champions. The way champions are chosen is through an old magical cup. Students throw their names in, and three champions — one from each school — is chosen. They are all bound by magic to compete, else they’ll lose their magic.”

“No take backs?”

Harry nodded, “Then my name appeared soon after the champions was chosen, even though I never threw my name in.”

“So the cup was faulty?” Dudley asked, trying to follow.

“Not exactly. Someone tricked the cup, intending to get me into the tournament.”

“But why?”

“That, Dudley, is a much bigger story. I’ll keep it easy for you and stick to this year only. You see, the tournament was so dangerous that our government set a bar for entry. You had to be at least 17 years old: a legal adult in the magical world.”

Dudley’s mouth opened and closed, stopping himself from asking the stupid question.

“Exactly. I’m not of age. You were born a month before me, you should know. Hey!” hopping up and looking at Dudley, “Your birthday is coming up,” Harry realised.

“It’s tomorrow, Harry.”

“Same thing, anyway.” Dudley rolled his eyes and smiled. “An older bloke entered the tournament using my name.”

“But how did this magic cup pick your name when there were already three chosen?” Harry did not know the full answer, so he gave Dudley an answer that would make sense to him.

“Magic.”

They stared at one another.

“Right. Magic.” Dudley thought it made sense and so it passed. “So just because this cup saw your name, you’re forced? The cup couldn’t sign up the bloke who threw your name in instead of you?” Harry looked at Dudley, frowning a little as he thought. “Amazing magic this.”

Harry rolled his eyes and moved on, “So we figured that someone entered me into the tournament to die. Nothing new—”

“Nothing new? What?”

“Like I said, it’s part of a much bigger story too complicated to explain in a short amount of time. Let’s just say it’s not the first time someone wanted me dead,” Harry saw Dudley pale a little, “and for sure, not the last.”

Harry didn’t feel like shoving all this information into him all at once, to prevent breaking him. So he took a moment.

“I take it the stitches are related.” Dudley mentioned, gesturing in the direction of his arm. When Dudley caught Harry in the rare sight of slipping out of the shower, he saw it. Harry often wore long sleeves to avoid the question of if it’s hurting or where it came from when he was at Hogwarts. Knowing it would be difficult to avoid talking about it, Harry explained it as a recent injury. Nothing more or less.

Harry’s nodding in response was all the answer Dudley needed. It was enough to sell the danger Harry was claiming he was in. He couldn’t imagine Harry doing something that violent to himself.

“Okay so let’s gloss over the tasks,” Harry brushed past talk of his scar, “There’re some dragons, mermaids, grindylows, and other magical beasts.” He knew glossing over the tasks using the word dragon wasn’t an excellent idea, but he hoped that if he moved fast enough, Dudley wouldn’t stop him. “Despite all of that, it turned out, the person who entered me into the tournament wanted me to survive, not die.”

“Dragons?”

“Yeah. Dragons. Think of them like giants bats with tails and spit fire. We all got one.”

“Yeah, I get the concept, and they expected you to live?” Dudley asked, eyes widened.

“They didn’t expect, they made sure of it,” he balled up his hand into a fist at the memory of Barty Crouch Jr, “They made sure at every turn, I would have an advantage.”

“How?”

“A bad guy disguised as a good guy mentored me through the whole thing,” Harry answered, sighing. “Looking back at it, I should’ve known.”

“But you couldn’t have.”

Funnily enough, even Dudley understood that more than Harry himself.

“But I should have!” Harry cried, his voice loud enough to disturb the residents along the river. “I survived. Through all the tasks because of his guidance. And I fell right into their hands. It was a trap.” Harry added, “I fell for a trap, and I had to watch a friend die right before my eyes because of it.”

This time, Dudley let the silence hang, giving Harry time to recover.

“You told me yourself Harry, you want to change. That’s the point of this summer, innit? Change. Hearing all this, I understand now.”

“No, you don’t. A war is coming, Dudley. Magical or not, people are going to feel it. There’s so much more that you don’t know.” The stress was hitting him as he pounded the rock under his elbows, trying to beat back the onslaught of truths.

**Bang...**

**Bang...**

**_Bang!_ **

_“How can you say that, Albus?!” a familiar voice bellowed, storming away from the desk of the headmaster, his palm all the way to his fingertips reddening. “He’s a grown boy! He’s James and Lily’s son!”_

_Harry knew the voice of his godfather anywhere and retracted his hand from its knocking motion. It was a wonder how hollow Dumbledore_ _’s office door was, despite how heavy it was to open. Sirius sounded angry, angry enough to call out the strongest wizard of his time._

_“I understand your frustration with the situation at hand, Sirius. But I’m afraid there is little that can be done right now.” Dumbledore admitted with his back to the party stood in the centre of his office. The elderly headmaster was preening the perched phoenix behind his desk with his ever composed disposition. A reality that annoyed the lone son of Black._

_“He is not ready. None of us are for that matter.” He threw his hands in the air, landing them on the back of his neck, pinching, “But he can be. We can all be. But you. Must. Do. Something!”_

_“Sirius, you mustn’t—” Remus reached out to Sirius, only for his hand to be back handed away._

_“We cannot stand idly by,” Sirius stressed, eying his last brother for support, “Voldemort is back and he will regather his forces, you know this.”_

_Remus sunk his shoulders, knowing full well Sirius was right. He might not have been the smartest of the Marauders, but Sirius understood conflict more than anyone present._

_“Recall the Order, Albus.” He concluded with his head down._

_“Sirius—”_

_“Oh don’t Sirius me.” Sirius called out, swaying his head around to the Deputy Headmistress, “You know what has to be done. You all do.”_

_He took a moment to breathe once more. Getting angrier at this point would serve little purpose for him._

_“A war is coming. Lots of people are going to die, innocent people, if we don’t do something,” Sirius pleaded. “And don’t you all start lying to yourselves because you know it to be true.”_

Hearing Sirius’ vent about the incoming war influenced a lot of Harry’s actions over the last few days of Hogwarts. It was always through Sirius that Harry learnt the gruelling realities that Hogwarts and Dumbledore in particular tried to shield from him. Starting with the true repercussions of Voldemort’s return, and ending with the bodies that would pile due to his weakness and inaction, starting with Cedric's.

Harry’s own venting towards Dudley had already taken a toll on him. There was a lot of pressure riding on him. Pressure he bestowed upon himself. He knew none of it to be anything anyone asked him to do, but it was the only course of action he could see to take responsibility.

“Despite that, I needn’t know a lot to understand that your change is not meant for you. You want to change so you can better protect, that’s all. You’ve always been very protective of the things you care about Harry. I’ve seen it.” Dudley tried to soften the conversation, “Your outbursts when anyone attacks your parents’ name, for instance. I reckon Aunt Marge got the worst of it.”

A smile grew on Harry’s face as he looked out into the sky, then a chuckle as much as he tried to hold it back. It was horrific in the past, but when they thought about it today, she’d gotten what she deserved.

“I understand more now because I have people worth protecting too,” his cousin confessed.

“Ava...”

“Yeah. I changed because and for her. But this is much bigger than that for you, isn’t it?” Dudley rhetorically asked, so Harry frowned at him. “I heard what you told mum that day, about the man who killed your parents, and he’s out to get you.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Or maybe it is,” Dudley interjected. He jabbed a finger into Harry’s chest, “You need to stop over thinking it and stop beating yourself up over and over again.”

Dudley calmed himself down.

“You found a purpose, but you keep over thinking, broadening it. Making it more and more complicated. I know I don’t know you perfectly well, but I know over-complication when I see it because my mother does it all the time. I guess it’s in the Evans’ blood.” Dudley let off a light chuckle. “I can say, truthfully, that I seriously lack a majority of understanding of your world. But that aside, what’s so difficult about saying your purpose for change is to protect the ones you care about while kicking the arse of the man who killed your parents.”

Dudley spoke with a staggering amount of passion and wisdom, forming sentences Harry never thought would ever be said by anyone, not even Professor Dumbledore. He felt a mix of humour and stress in his words as he tried to convince the jury of Harry to agree.

“You may be young, but with the shit you’ve been through and the power you have, what’s to stop you from doing what’s right?”  
  


* * *

  
“You called, Papa?” the witch asked, peeking into the study with her tired eyes. The sun was shining through the window, illuminating the desk at the end of the room. It was the morning in the middle of summer in France when the Patriarch of the family, Dominique Delacour, summoned his eldest daughter of the family through their house-elf.

“Oui, ma chérie,” he said, lifting an envelope from a stack and waved it, gesturing her to come and get it, “Our little hero, Mr Potter, has owled back.”

Her father’s accent was annoyingly coherent in English to the lady at the door. Fleur envied that he along with her little sister was multitudes more understandable than she was, and she was a well eight years older than Gabrielle too. It appeared that it was just her and her mother that struggled to speak without their ever so thick accent. It was one of the reasons why she resisted talking to the students of Durmstrang and Hogwarts, despite her best friend’s badgering.

Nonetheless, the witch’s eyes flared to life at a reply from someone other than Hermione. Fleur and Hermione long since put their irrational past conflicts behind them when they befriended each other over letters. These conflicts did include Hermione’s dislike of veela’s thanks to how historians depicted them.

Best of all, she had French heritage and spoke French fluently. So their friendship flourished in their letters, be it Hermione could only send hers with their owl. A disadvantage of being muggleborn. Up till now, she’d been using the Weasley owl, Errol, and their recent addition, Pigwidgeon.

Hermione was slow to trust, but she learnt to trust the quarter-veela quicker than most since she was a fellow champion and friend to her best friend.

The Witch snatched the envelope from her father’s hands and gave her thanks before leaving. She made her way to the kitchen where she expected her mother, Apolline, to be preparing breakfast for her sister and her.

“Anuzzer letter from ‘Ermione?” her mother asked as she charmed the dishes to wash themselves in the sink.

“Non, Maman,” the witch said as she pulled a stool back to sit at the kitchen island.

“Aimee?” she tried again.

Aimee is Fleur’s best and a close family friend. They haven’t seen each other since the carriage ride back to Beauxbatons. Nor owled each other.

“It is from ‘Arry, Maman,” the answer came, putting an end to the guesses.

“Oh okay. Well before you get to read zat letter“—Apolline snatched the letter out of her hand, inciting a jaw drop from the young lady—“or eat. You go wake up your sister.”

“Maman...” she whined, her face dropping into an exaggerated pout.

“Shoo...” Apolline shooed her with her wand, ushering her out of the kitchen. Fleur groaned and left the kitchen to enter the high-ceilinged vestibule.

She rushed up the arched grand staircase, intending to drag her little sister down to the kitchen. It was summer, and her little sister has been spending most of it cooped up in her room, sleeping. Not coming out until late into the morning, which could be a couple hours from now if she doesn’t wake up. The older sister wasn’t going to wait that long to read Harry’s letter or eat.

“Gabby!” she screamed in the hall on the way to her bedroom.

No reply.

Turning to the door of her bedroom, she stepped into her room. She was sleeping on her bed, curled up under the covers.

The witch at the doorway was getting fidgety. She’s waited all summer to get a letter to and back from the stubborn little hero of hers, and it was all put on hold because her little sister was a lazy bird.

She crept up to her bedside and screamed as she leapt into the air towards her.

“Gabby!”

Her frame easily squashed the smaller witch, sending her into a fit as she is startled awake under the weight, be it light, of her older sister. The two squealed and laughed as they tossed and turned on the bed with only the duvet between them.

Eventually, the carnage came to a close as they both caught their breaths on their own side of the bed.

“Merde! Fleur! What are you doing?”

“Oi!” she flicked her little sister’s nose, “Watch your language!”

“Faux cul,” Gabrielle muttered.

“Oui, but I am ze older one,” Fleur said, grinning. “Come on!”

“Why are you in such a hurry?” she asked, landing on the balls of her feet as she pushed off her bedside. Fleur had already gotten back on her feet and was pulling her sister by the wrist.

“Because I’m ‘ungry and Maman won’t let me eat if you don’t come down,” Fleur moaned.

“Carry me!” Gabby asked, her voice childish and sweet. Fleur looked down at her sister, her bright blue eyes begging her not to, but not affecting her little sister.

“Fine...”

Gabrielle hopped up and grabbed her sister’s shoulders from behind while she caught her and kept her steady. It was not the first time she carried her little sister, but Gabrielle was much too old to be riding her older sister.

They made it to the kitchen where the food, and their mother sitting cross-legged, were waiting. In her waiting, she decided to get ahead of her daughter by reading Harry’s letter.

To anyone, it would be nothing to be embarrassed about, there wasn’t anything compromising in the letter, they hardly knew each other for there to be.

To Fleur, a sudden instinct of offence rose as she reached over and snatched the unfolded letter out of her mother’s hands.

“Maman!”

Apolline only giggled at her eldest daughter’s response before handing her youngest a plate with various bread.

“Oh, so you’re hungry for a letter from a boy, ma sœur?” Gabrielle teased as she looked at the back of the letter that bore the name: Harry.

“Gabby!” Fleur squealed again, her eyes shifting back and forth between her sister and mother, embarrassed and her face reddening.

She grabbed a croissant from Gabrielle’s plate and stormed out of the kitchen, making her way to the library, which was on the ground floor in the opposite wing.

Not that she was desperate to get a letter from a boy like Gabrielle stated, it was that she was eager to help the one person who needed more help than anyone right now. She was part of a handful of individuals that believed Harry’s account at the graveyard.

That, alongside her obligation to help him, perhaps even with the “life debt” she owed. It was impossible to ignore the fact he saved her in the maze.

What most did not know about the third task, was that if you did not signal your need of rescue, whatever horror lived in the maze would be well within their rights to take your life. The Triwizard Tournament was relentless in this sense.

There may be occurrences when you are incapable of signalling. Which was directly applicable to the Beauxbatons Champion...

_“Rennervate,” the Scottish woman uttered with her wand pointed at Fleur’s chest._

_She reanimated in an instant, her body rising to a sitting up position with her chest heaving and out of breath._

_Around her was the concerned members of her family and the half-giant headmistress Madame Maxime towering above them._

_“Get zem out! Get zem out please!” Fleur warned, then entering the embrace of her mother who was kneeling beside her. The surrounding crowd around her backed away to give her breathing room._

_“What happened, Miss Delacour?” McGonagall asked the distraught witch._

_“Zere is anuzzer wizard. ‘e attacked me. It is not safe.”_

_“Merlin’s beard,” came Amos Diggory’s voice from the crowd._

_“You must rest Miss Delacour, we will investigate,” McGonagall looked over her shoulder and around, looking for someone, “Where is Alastor?”_

_“I don’t know Professor, he was here, and now he’s not,” Seamus Finnigan, notorious pyromaniac of Hogwarts, said._

_“He’s probably waiting around the maze to relieve more students of the task,” she suggested._

_Fleur had tears streaming down her face as she buried it in her mother_ _’s chest. The horrifying experience of being attacked by a tall, bulky figure in the maze. Catching her surprise around the corner as if she was being searched for unlike the other threats in the maze that were waiting to be within proximity to triggered._

_“You’re a lucky one, Miss. If Mr Potter hadn’t cast the periculum charm, we might never have found you,” the short elderly wizard, Filius Flitwick said behind her. Fleur turned around to face him._

_“Really? ‘ow do you know it ‘e ‘oo cast it?”_

_“I was in the vicinity on my broom, I heard him cast it,” Flitwick mused as he walked away to join the other Professors..._

The obligation to help him however she would be a weak way of putting it. She owed him a life debt. What better way to relieve yourself of a life debt than to give someone a summer in France, and not only that but the ability to use magic and train him to protect himself. At least, that was the plan.

In her letters to Hermione, she asked for her help on how to serve the life debt, and she replied with: help him however you can, we can’t do anything from our end. They settled on a magical summer holiday outside of Privet Drive. She had a warded home in Northern France that could grant Harry the freedom to learn and use magic, of which defence was of utmost importance. As a recent graduate of Beauxbatons, it enabled her all the time and ability in the world to make it happen. Also, her upbringing assured her ability to protect herself with the training from several tutors.

Fleur took a seat on the sofa in the library and read the letter. By the time she finished reading the letter and letting out a restrained giggle at his attempt of a written goodbye in French, she was feeling a combination of annoyance and frustration.

Hermione had warned her about Harry’s behaviour towards any form of help. If it were outside of Harry’s little trio, or the Marauders, or Hagrid, he would surely decline. Not only that, but how he said he wanted to protect her. It annoyed her, being treated like a damsel in distress as the English put.

According to her, it was not his place to decide if she could help him or not. Men don’t have the final say because of their gender. Soon, her thoughts were directed towards gender bias instead of Harry’s actual intentions.

She recalled the words from Hermione’s letter: If he does not want help, force it upon him. Eventually, he’ll submit. How else do you think he gets his homework done?  
  


* * *

  
The green bolt, brighter than any evergreen, shot across the air, his eyes tracking it all the way as it caught the male standing beside him square in the chest. He heard his last breath leave the man’s lips as he fell to his knees and his body falling limp into the ground. It was unlike any spell or curse he’d learnt, but it was all too familiar to him.

The loud thump of his body crashing next to him, the face of the Hufflepuff champion, staring at him through the now lifeless, hollow grey eyes. The urge to react in fear was overwhelming, the pain in his abdomen going numb in the eerie silence that followed the last breath of a man he knew for months. In the man’s last actions, he rushed to his side to check if he was all right. A loyal badger until the end.

His eyes opened and stared at the ceiling once again. A part of him hoping that it would fall on him. He’d once again suffered through the terrors of the graveyard in his dreams. The life vanishing from the eyes of Cedric Diggory as he stumbled onto the ground next to him. The morning felt stale as he pushed himself off the bed to get dressed for the morning run.

When he met Dudley downstairs, Harry could tell that he was well aware of his recent nightmare. Harry’s face expressed the definite mood of not wanting to talk about it. They’d acted like nothing had happened and proceeded with their run. The words from his cousin the day before followed him over the restless night. He thought about it thoroughly over their run.

“I’m glad you told me,” Dudley panted, “About the other world.”

“I should have awhile ago. You have the right to know how much danger you’re in just by running next to me,” Harry said as he slowed the pace of their jog so they could talk better.

“Good to know. I guess it just adds a little more spice to my life,” he said as he gave a laugh between breaths.

“I hope you can handle that much spice, mate,” added Harry, bringing his hand to his forehead to wipe his sweaty forehead.

“Hey, so, that jersey of yours,” Dudley mentioned, pointing to the shirt he was wearing, a visible sweat building in the red shade of the shirt.

The workout proceeded as per normal, but Dudley’s words still flew astray in his mind. It glowered at him, smacking him upside the head as he continues to blame himself for everything, and finally, doubt himself. Screaming at him to act rather than mope around. The Dark Lord was responsible for most of the worst in his life, but if it wasn’t Tom Marvolo Riddle, his biggest enemy was himself.

He wasn’t sure when the conversation starting with a French witch sending him a letter had gone awry, but it had. Speaking of a French witch...

“I don’t suppose this isn’t the same bird in your room,” asked Dudley, pointing up at the snowy white owl perched on the top of Vernon’s Vauxhall estate. Harry was wiping the sweat off his brow with the hem of his shirt when they arrived right outside number four.

“You’d be correct in your suppositions, Dudley,” Harry answered, picking the letter out of the owl’s grasp. It was becoming difficult to suppress his excitement of getting a reply from Fleur, so he hurried into the house.

“Tell her hello from the birthday boy,” Dudley called.

“Gotcha, _dudders_.” Harry acknowledged, enunciating Dudley’s most hated nickname. What could be worse than having a nickname so similar to a cow’s udders?

“Arse.” Harry heard Dudley utter as he jogged up the stairs.

Closing the door to his bedroom behind him, he flung the letter onto his desk, hitting the base of Hedwig’s cage. He felt sorry for having to keep an owl like Hedwig caged as she glared at him.

He peeled off of his long-sleeved quidditch under shirt and threw it to the corner in his room by the door. His quidditch uniform is one of his favourite possessions from the magical world, as they fit him better than a majority of the clothes the Dursley’s handed down. Even though Hermione took the time to resize his wardrobe in the Gryffindor common room last year after they learnt the transfiguration spell from Professor McGonagall in class that same year.

He still remembers Hermione kneeling in front of his trunk as she cycled through his clothing for shrinking. Ron dissuaded her from fiddling with his belongings. Though Harry wasn’t as strong as him to push her away. When she arrived at his boxers, Harry was sitting on his bed with his head in his hands, electing not to watch her anymore.

The refreshing breeze of his number four bedroom cooled him down before he took a seat. It’s almost been an entire month since he’s started the whole working out routine, refining it over time with Dudley. It was having a significant effect on both of their mentalities, encouraging not only a healthy living, but healthy thinking. Which includes healthy eating with Harry’s newfound access to food in and outside the house.

He resisted the urge to slouch, keeping his back straight against the wooden chair. Proud that his shoulders weren’t droopy and that his stomach was flat instead of concave. He didn’t feel like a skinny teenager anymore, and it felt good.

Without delay, he peeled through the seal on the back of the envelope and pulled the folded letter out from within. It was a near replica of the one he’d received a few days ago. Down to the beautiful signature on the back. Harry was convinced that it was just what the French do.

The tone of the letter the moment he reached the second paragraph was reminiscent of Hermione’s letters. There were hints of disappointment and agitation, like she was judging him once again for not starting his Charms essay. An essay Harry was proud to have already finished long ago.

Although, it wasn’t a letter from Hermione. This was Fleur.

_Dear Harry,_

_I think I failed to point out that Hermione and I have become wonderful friends, and we have talked a lot about you in particular. She made me aware that you prefer to not receive help from others._

_Unfortunately for you, I agree with Hermione on one point. Since you don_ _’t want me to help you because you think I am a weak girl that can barely protect herself just because she was found stunned in the maze and you had to save her like a damsel in distress, I will have to take matters into my own hands._

_Also, it is spelt Au revoir, Harry._

_Amicalement,_

_Fleur_

Harry took a worried gulp at the direction the letter took. He never intended to cause such offence to Fleur, and now he not only feared what happened to their friendship but by what she meant by taking matters into her own hands.

He searched his drawers for a spare parchment and drew his quill, nearly knocking the lamp and ink pot. Harry was in a state of panic as he tried to draw up a quick reply before it was too late.

_Dear Fleur,_

_I deeply apologise for what I said. I did not mean it that way. I do not see you as weak or as a damsel in distress. To be honest, I hadn_ _’t even put much thought, or memory into saving you during the maze. I never saw it that way. I would have done the same thing if it had been Krum._

 _Please don_ _’t do anything rash. I really don’t need your help, I’m handling myself pretty well. There’s really nothing you need to do. As for Hermione, she’s always looked out for me and all, but that’s when she was able and near. I don’t know if I’m making any sense to you right now. All I’m trying to say is that I can do this on my own._

 _Anyways, it_ _’s my cousin’s birthday today, and he says hello. I need to figure out the whole present thing today, so I’m going to end it here I guess._

_From,_

_Harry_

Harry read it thrice over to make sure that this time, he didn’t approach her in any way that would cause offence. He’d spent so much time worrying about the letter he hadn’t realised half an hour has passed by and her owl was probably waiting for him.

Getting another envelope and signing it, he rushed down the staircase and out the front door to find the owl on the doormat once again, waiting for him. It was as if the owl knew when Harry finished and flapped down. Probably because of the ruckus he made to rush down the stairs.

“Sorry girl,” he said as he crouched down. He then received an offensive peck and hoot from the owl, “Okay, boy, I guess.”

The owl responded with a pleased look, then yanked the letter out of Harry’s hand with his beak and picked it up with his talons.

Soon, Harry was looking at a white blur in the sky, flying south to deliver a much-hurried letter.  
  


* * *

  
By the time the letter from Harry Potter reached Château de Delacour, Fleur had already been dead set on her plans. When she read it, the only thing that changed was that she’d be taking one extra item along with her.

She collaborated with Hermione weeks ago to establish a plan that would benefit him the greatest while relieving her of her life debt. All while not interfering with whatever plan Dumbledore may have in-store for him.

The elderly professor may have told Harry’s friends that they mustn’t contact him, but what he doesn’t know, can not hurt him. It took a while to convince Hermione of such a plan that would somewhat go against the wishes of Albus Dumbledore, but eventually, she saw that Harry needs help, now more than ever. Knowing she couldn’t, she might as well invite the aid of a friend that can in Fleur.

Their letters were what Hermione would describe as brilliant. Most of the time, they were thoughtful and intellectual. Fleur and Hermione rarely met someone that appeared to be on their wavelength. It came as a shock to both of them when they realised each other’s brilliance. Fleur being the eldest daughter of a wealthy French family while also being the top of her class, and Hermione being the top of her class four years straight while being muggleborn. How much they had in common, despite the differences, spurred a powerful friendship.

Fleur was standing in her room, the only light coming from the lamp at her bedside. She stared at the standing mirror, inspecting herself. She was questioning herself like the typical female would before leaving: Did she look okay? Would it make her stand out? Did she need more or fewer layers over her body?

Fashion was one of her strong suits, as it was one of many fields her parents raised her to understand: looking acceptable and great in front of others. What else would people expect from the eldest daughter of a _la Pilier de Noblesse_ family? Though it was one of many things she hated to show, only second to her veela heritage.

She rarely visited Britain; the last time she could recall being there other than for the Triwizard Tournament would be a family holiday in Brighton. That was almost five years ago today.

Dressed in an orange plaid shirt with fitting dark blue jeans, the most casual summer look she could throw together without arousing too much attention from a crowd. She was hoping to bring along sunglasses and a hat to shield her face. Fleur was ticking all the boxes to maximise the suppression of her aura.

The strength of muggles against her aura pales compared to magical folk. Shielding her face, and most of all, her eyes, would surely suppress the aura well. So she grabbed a pair of cat-eye sunglasses on her dresser and shoved it into her handbag, forgetting about bringing a hat.

Satisfied with herself, she left her bedroom to join her little sister and father in the study. As she entered the room, the energetic little French girl bolted towards her.

“Come back soon,” Gabrielle said, wrapping her arms around her sister’s waist, pressing her face against her bosom.

“Come visit soon,” Fleur offered as she stroked Gabrielle’s silvery-blonde hair. She then pulled back and held her at arm’s length, “Don’t you want to meet your ‘ero?”

It was now Gabrielle’s time to blush. A crush on him had been brewing since Harry had “saved” her from the second task. It was interesting to deal with over the Triwizard Tournament because more often than not, Fleur noticed her own little sister rooting for the boy rather than her. She wasn’t hurt or betrayed when she learnt it from Aimee. Instead, she relished in it because she had one more property to tease her over.

“‘ere you go, ma cherie,” her mother said from behind, “Your grandmuzzer wants to meet ‘im too.”

She turned around to his mother who was holding a pair of bezants, the French wizarding world’s currency. Each with a string run through like it was a pendant. A clear detail that revealed its inauthenticity was instead of a Matagoleia — the mythical “mother” of Matagot — on the face of the coin, it was a fleur-de-lis.

“If ever ‘e ‘as ze time. I am not even sure if ‘e ‘as any for zis,” Fleur wondered. She was worried about what he would say. If he would reject her help again after everything. She’s never had a fear of rejection before since she’s been pampered and “accepted” since birth. Hermione entrusted her with the duty of helping Harry when no one else could this summer, and she intended to see it through.

It all started as searching for a means of ridding herself of the life debt she owed Harry, but it soon turned into something more important and bigger than herself. The thought of the Dark Lord returning continued to send shivers down her spine, and she trusted Harry’s words that he did in fact return. If it hadn’t been for that, Fleur wouldn’t have been able to convince her family of increasing security on all fronts. Maybe it was the way Hermione depicted it in her letters, but she was convinced of the Dark Lord’s return, no questions asked. To Hermione, she wondered how anyone could doubt him. A testament to her faith in her best friend.

The stories about him in Hogwarts and what he’s done since he’s been there. The rumours spread all across Europe through the families of Hogwarts students. By Fleur’s fifth year, she’d heard about the boy-who-lived who defeated a troll and gained a stupendous amount of points for his house for a bunch of vague actions that Dumbledore described as heroic. His actions were only further publicised with the events that transpired the next two years, provided that they were also rumours. The Triwizard Tournament was the cherry on top with his efforts in the second task. At that point, Fleur had without a doubt in her mind that he was the hero the rumours painted him to be.

“Don’t worry about it Fleur, get zere when we get zere,” Apolline said, placing a kiss on her forehead.

Fleur was glad that her family understood and supported her through this. She waited days, owling Hermione back and forth, planning before she broke it to her parents what she planned on doing this summer. Fleur surprised them, but what parent wouldn’t be when their daughter announced her intentions to go above and beyond for someone. They were, however, glad that the character in question was Harry Potter, the world renowned boy-who-lived, and the one who saved both of their daughters.

“Are you sure about this, ma fleur?” Dominique Delacour asked as he grabbed his wand from the middle drawer of his desk.

“Oui, Papa.”

Dominique gave a heavy sigh before he pointed his wand at the paper on his desk.

“You understand what the press is saying about the boy,” he cautioned, referring to the Daily Prophet’s accusations. When the news reached across the channel, the more rational _La Gazette du Sorcier_ was sceptical given the history of the Daily Prophet when it came to heavy news. Nonetheless, they relayed the word of the Daily Prophet, framing the boy-who-lived as a liar and attention seeker.

Fleur felt a twinge of annoyance as it appeared her own father believed the news rather than Harry. She didn’t want to get mad at him, because she couldn’t blame him. The only ones that could corroborate his story were the dead. He did not have faith in Harry like she along with so few others had.

“I trust ‘im,” she confessed.

“Then it is out of my hands. If what Harry says is true, then he will need all the help you can give. Just be careful and don’t get in trouble Fleur,” he pointed his wand at the book on the table, “Five minutes, oui?”

“Oui.”

“Make sure you are clear of the wards beforehand,” he cautioned, receiving a nod from his daughter. “Portus,” Dominique cast, the book emitting a brief blue glow before fading.  
  


* * *

  
“So where we off to tonight, birthday boy?” Harry asked Dudley as they exited the local bus.

Harry was excited, but he did well to hide it. It was the first birthday celebration he’d attend in Muggle Britain since he was eleven years old when he accompanied the Dursleys to the zoo. A memorable time, for both Harry and Dudley, for very different reasons.

“Well, you see, Ava has this idea,” Dudley started.

“Putting a Scotsman...Scotswoman..? In charge of your birthday, Dudley? I didn’t think you’d have _that_ much faith in her,” Harry mused, smiling at his choice. He may have not left the “humble abode” that was Number Four on Privet Drive a lot, but he grew up around Vernon Dursley and his friends that visit now and then in his childhood. There were more than enough occasions where they would get sloshed in the household and cause a ruckus that the neighbours would complain about. After those incidents, they were forced to have their drunken bouts outside the house.

“Oi, it’s no big deal. You remember Ava had an auntie, yeah?” Harry nodded and sounded his acknowledgement, “Well, she runs a pub down the river.”

“You do know the history of the Scots and alcohol right, Dudley? I know it’s not as bad as the Irish, but it’s still up there,” Harry joked, knowing full well that Dudley understood where he was coming from. “Anyway, we hardly look of age. Sore thumb much?” He said, tugging on his shirt.

“You kidding? Look at yourself mate,” Dudley exclaimed, turning around so that he was walking backwards and swat at Harry’s chest before pointing at him. Harry looked down at himself, then looking back up with an eyebrow raised.

“When you got back, you were already taller, fit too, doing that ball sport you talked about.” Harry mentioned quidditch to Dudley, provided he had to leave a lot of gaps to avoid complicating the game. It ended up sounding a lot like a crude combination of ice hockey for its aggression, basketball for the hoops and balls, and flying broomsticks. The concept travelled without much confusion from that point forward.

Though when Harry thought about it, he often questioned how quidditch could put him in a high physical condition, since he figured seekers are the least physical of the team. Last year, quidditch was put on hold for the Triwizard Tournament, so more to the point. Instead, it was the month of strenuous working out in the morning that brought a positive change on both Harry and Dudley’s body. Calling it a morning run was an oversimplification.

They didn’t stop to talk about what they were adding to their runs often. It was more like a silent agreement between the two. If Harry began doing sit-ups halfway through the run, Dudley would join in and stop when he stopped. If Dudley took a turn that would extend their run towards the uphill residences, Harry would follow suit. By now, as the month passed, the routine became riddled with various workout activities. The main meat of the operation taking place in the playground in Little Whinging, using the recreational equipment for bodyweight exercises. Ava called it callisthenics when Dudley described it one afternoon.

“Harry, a month of working out has done wonders to you, mate. I’m surprised you hadn’t noticed.” This wasn’t the first time Dudley had brought up his improvements. While Dudley was trying to put off weight and build muscle, Harry was doing the opposite in gaining weight. Yet it was he that appeared to produce the most visible results, filling out clothing a little too well, bumping into doorframes more often. It came as a surprise to Harry, since he paid little mind to his bodily development. Then again, Harry despised looking at himself in the mirror since the start of Summer. But when he did, he was touching his own muscles on his stomach, almost in confusion. If it was this easy to accomplish in a few weeks, why hadn’t others done it, Harry wondered.

It was just after dusk, and they were now walking river side to the lit up tavern just a couple hundred metres away from them.

“The only advice Ava gave me was, act like you belong, and you’ll belong,” Dudley stated, his hands in his pockets, “or at least that’s my rough translation of what she said.”

They chuckled at Dudley’s jab at her Scottish accent. Dudley didn’t have the luxury of being surrounded by diversity like Harry was with Hogwarts. It enabled him to come into contact with various accents: Scottish, Irish, and Indian to name a few. It was with time that understanding them became almost as easy as understanding “proper English”. Easier for Harry since his roommate was one of them.

Seamus knew the troubles of speaking with the tongue he grew up with, mentioning it a couple times in conversation. A lot of students struggled to understand him, leading to several repeated phrases or inconveniences. To better fit in, he tried his best to squish it down. A sad thought, but a compromise he was willing to make as a child trying to fit in at a new school.

“The birthday boy is here!” came the familiar Scottish voice belonging to Ava. A cheer erupted as the crowd grabbed Dudley and guided him to the bar.

“Surely you’re not eighteen,” the barmaid said as the volume died down. She stared at Dudley with cold eyes. Harry was beside the two men who were crowding over Dudley. The pub fell silent, the sounds of mugs being settled on tables and chatter dying down being the last of the sounds in the bar. “A little birdy told me yer celebratin’ yer fifteenth.”

Now, it was just the sound of Dudley’s nervous breathing.

“Tommy, get the cognac!” the barmaid shouted, the cheering erupting again. The pub regained its liveliness, and the ones who fell quiet were laughing at Dudley’s nervousness or drinking. The barman at the other side of the bar hustled, walking over with a fancy-looking bottle. It was c brandy at this point.

Harry chuckled. It took some getting used to, and repetitive occasions under the dizzy eyes of the Weasley twins, but Firewhiskey, standing at a staggering 42% of alcohol, became Harry’s drink of choice. Low quantity, high effect. Which meant a single bottle lasted a good while. He still had one buried in his trunk. The twins spiking the drinks at the Yule Ball had some unwarranted benefits to Harry; he knew who to go to if ever he needed to loosen the screws in his head. Following the events of the third task Triwizard Tournament, the Weasley twins didn’t hesitate to comply in helping Harry out.

The thought of becoming an alcoholic was distasteful to Harry. Hence he only drank five out of the eight days of school that remained after the third task.

When the brandy was pouring into a balloon glass, Dudley gave Harry a look of worry.

Harry smiled back and nodded to the glass. A message engraved in his emerald irises.

Your Funeral.

As expected, the bare minimum of a sip had him placing the glass back down on the table as his system tried to accept the newfound threat to his body. If it were any other situation, he would back down and not drink. But the pressure building around him from the several grown men cheering him on to drink his first brandy, not to mention his girl who ran behind the bar and was standing beside the barmaid, whom Harry deciphered was her auntie.

It didn’t take long for Dudley to muster the strength to take a large swig of the alcohol. His eyes slammed shut as he downed the liquid. The audible gulp incited another wave of cheering. When Dudley opened his eyes, he looked towards Ava, then towards Harry, who was giving him a thumbs up.

The attention detached from the birthday boy over time and towards the television in the pub playing a muggle sport. The men cheered for their respective teams and hurled slurs at patrons who opposed them.

To settle in the atmosphere, Harry asked the barmaid for a wine cooler. He had never tried one before. All he knew was that when he was in the Three Broomsticks one Hogsmeade weekend, Hermione commented that butterbeer was the magical equivalent of a wine cooler. It wasn’t surprising anymore that Hermione knew a tidbit like that.

The barmaid smiled at Harry’s politeness and pulled a bottle bearing the brand Bacardi with a blue liquid within. She popped the cap open and slid the bottle across the counter into Harry’s open hand. It wasn’t unusual that bar etiquette was similar across both the magical and muggle world, such as the open hand on the bar counter being the universal signal for “slide drink here”.

Bringing the tip to his lips, the liquid poured past his tongue with a sweet and fruity vengeance. A mild sizzle tickling his throat and the alcohol slipped into his system. While the flavour was sweeter than that of butterbeer, the sensation was all too enchanting to the young wizard. The days of comfort he found in a glass alone in his dorm, drowning away his thoughts as the elixir brought an addicting sedation to his mind.

Dudley’s personality went from nervous to reckless in a snap as he attempted to indulge himself in more alcohol than he could handle. Harry didn’t have to step in to control him because he knew Ava knew that giving him too much would do wonders to a lightweight. It was almost cute watching Ava restrain Dudley as he tried to pull stunts left and right.

“Let’s—” Dudley paused, gathering whatever thought he had before resuming, “—set this man up with a drink!” He was gesturing towards Harry. Harry’s drunken cousin was no longer sat on his stool, he was standing, bobbling as he struggled to centre himself.

“I’m good Duds.” Harry replied in kind, waving his wine cooler in the air.

“No! Something more appropriate. This man is a living legend. He defeated—”

Harry’s eyes widened, freezing in place. Time fell still, but his heart was racing, the beating reaching his ears. The eyes that some described as beautiful and gentle were darting left and right towards the patrons that surrounded them.

His eyes fell on a burly man; large but not overwhelming like his uncle. He was wearing a navy blue polo shirt, baggy jeans and brown workman shoes. Hunched over the counter, elbows surrounding a brown mug, looking as if it was all that was holding him up. With a little dirt under his cheek and a beanie sticking out of his back pocket, his appearance bore a similarity to the labourers he saw passing in and out Staines. Overworked and looking for bottles to spend the rest of his evening with.

Harry’s head turned over his shoulder to spot a woman sitting not too far from him on a barstool in a knee-length orange and yellow dress. A very casual, but eye-catching combination that matches her shoes and golden blonde curls. A brown, unbranded purse lying flat on the counter beside her glass as she chatted with the barmaid. Their familiarity brought a little ease, but a figure in a booth behind the ladies drew his attention.

He was sitting just shy of the shadows under flickering fluorescents at the end of the pub with a mug in hand. Silent but pondering as he stared into the splinters of the wooden walls. With a cloak that scrunched behind him against the back of the chair, he drew an aura about him that resembled the eerie patrons of the Leaky Cauldron. The last sort of individual he wanted within his circle of influence.

It wasn’t the first time that he felt this floodgate of input, his mind racing to take in so much to fulfil his fearful and paranoid state. Harry shot to his feet, jarring his senses, making him flutter his eyes as he fell into brief dizzy spell. Accompanied with a mild stinging deep in the back of his neck, his hand flew up to clutch the skin around it as if it would help.

Fortunately, Dudley was much too hammered to remember. He began snapping his fingers, making a face as he tried to remember the words.

“What was it, what was it...”

Harry, having gathered himself, took this time to approach Dudley.

“Alright Dudley, I think you need to take a seat, mate,” he said with a nervous laugh, wrapping an arm around Dudley’s shoulder. It didn’t take much effort to guide him to a booth in the corner. Thankfully, Dudley’s train of thought derailed and fell into a booth with Harry. The setting didn’t last long for Dudley as he let his head fall to the table with a loud thud, followed by snoring.

“Great.”

Ava slid into the booth beside Dudley and across from Harry.

“Smashed already, eh?” she asked with a giggle as she poked Dudley’s cheek.

“Yeah pretty much,” Harry answered for him with a smile and a roll of the eyes before taking another swig from his wine cooler.

“You seem to be handling it pretty well.”

“I’m drinking light,” Harry mentioned, shaking his bottle at the Scotswoman.

“If you call your seven breezers an hour light, I’m terrified to see your heavy. Have you hit the loo yet?”

Harry raised an eyebrow, surprised at the fact that it’s been an hour, and that this was his seventh. He doesn’t even remember ordering a third, no less a second. Her auntie just kept replacing his bottles when he was looking away.

The thought of going to the loo made him well aware of his bladder state. Ava understood his expression and pointed towards the door behind him.  
  


* * *

  
The familiar feeling of being hooked behind the navel was brief as she stumbled into her landing. Grateful that her arrival did not arouse the attention of the surrounding muggles, she stored the one-way portkey into her handbag. The bag charmed to have an expansive interior, thanks to the capacious extremis charm.

In a fit of panic, her free hand flew to her hip. She eased over when she felt her trusty rosewood holstered. The last thing she wanted was to be a country away from home without her wand. She observed her surroundings to confirm that she’d landed in the place her father described. To her right was a packed port filled with large ferries and coast guard vessels. She has never seen a seaside this busy before, so lively and active, so late in the evening.

Fleur was standing outside a building that read Portsmouth International Port. Being magical, she never had to face the congestion in travel. With portkeys, apparition, and the floo network becoming the backbones of magical transportation for centuries.

She had taken a portkey made by her father to Portsmouth, a coastal town in Britain. Most would claim he had created and allowed the use of an illegal portkey. Fortunately for her, such standard rules did not apply to her family. The only people that knew she was in Great Britain now was her immediate family. Similarly to their owl, tracking her family would lead to an international headache for the British Ministry of Magic.

A large clock in the centre of a queueing station she landed beside read half-past nine. It was then that she became aware of how late it was. Stores have long since been closed, and the only places open was the ferry service and a few restaurants were closing up. Time was on her side, and all she had to do was talk to the ferry service before she could apparate to her next destination.

She decided on exploring the area and the terminal a bit. It was the first time she was on her own in another country, so curiosity won out. Fleur grew up in France her entire life, mostly in the capital, Paris. She lived in a Chateau near the Notre-Dame, a building difficult to miss with its scale and popularity with tourists. Muggles believe it to be the crown of the fourth arrondissement of France, but beneath it was the French Ministry of Magic.

Hence she never really got out of the capital much. With the notable exception of their summer home in Monaco and a single holiday to Brighton. And the occasional visit to Versailles and Le Mans.

Portsmouth appeared to be a poor choice for a visit as her first international and independent travel, but she was not there for leisure. She would be busy with more work than play this half of summer if everything went according to plan. Most of the illumination from where she stood came from the quiet terminal building in front of her. It made sense since the channel was most busy in the day, and it took a long time for the ferry to cross the channel riddled with shipping lanes.

Entering the terminal through swinging double doors, she felt a wash of cool air, from what the muggles call “air conditioning”. Most witches and wizards refrain from applauding the muggles on their rapidly advancing technology. Many of which are pureblood families that wanted nothing to do with muggles and would have done much to eliminate them had it not been for the Statute of Secrecy. Rational people would claim the statute may have saved wizardkind, others would call it a coward’s action.

Fleur appreciated the fresh breeze and made her way to the ferry counter. A man wearing a uniform of the ferry service had his elbow on the counter and his chin in his hand, twirling a sheet of paper with his fingertips.

“What can I do—“ the Englishman stopped talking, and tired eyelids snapping to full attention, staring at her. His focus fixated on her, and not a sound was leaving his open mouth.

She opened her handbag and searched the contents until she pulled out her sunglasses. Slipping them on, she snapped her fingers at the hot-blooded male.

“Bonjour, monsieur. I would like a ferry ride tonight, for two,” she asked politely, yet annoyed that he was still in a daze. She may not have hatred towards muggles, but she held an acute annoyance for them when having to deal with the affected ones.

“Y-Yes. Returning t-to your country, miss?” The man stammered.

“Oui, wiz my boyfriend.” It was a white lie, and she knew it well. Such words can indulge one of two outcomes from affected individuals.

Fleur had learnt from her mother — and what she learnt from her grandmother — that if you state your relationship status, it would be seventy-thirty chance of the outcome being in your favour. If it is in your favour, the aura would no longer effect them, but only for a few hours. The immunity isn’t permanent. Though if it isn’t in your favour, the affected would become violently possessive, eager to gain the attention and affection of the veela by any means necessary, even killing off the competition. Even if the competition didn’t exist. That being said, a simple confundus charm would sanitise them from such a state.

This was the grim side of living as a veela. Having to live with powers capable of doing that to another being.

Fleur took the risk because, for one, Harry was not here. Thus he was safe, tipping the odds slightly in her favour. And because it was frustrating dealing with beings affected by her aura; with tire comes recklessness and low tolerance.

Fleur was glad when she got the better of the bargain, pulling her hand away from her holster.

The tender snapped out of it and apologised, “I’m sorry, miss. So two tickets, destination?”

“Le ‘avre.”

“Passports, please,” he asked, unaffected by the aura for now.

Facing the passports issue, she wishes that she hadn’t done it because her aura would help her in convincing him to give her the tickets without them. She mentally berated herself for not thinking and drew her wand discretely, pointing it at the man. To think she needed to bewitch him anyways brought a sigh forth.

“Confundo,” she whispered. She watched as the man shivered before he spoke.

“Uh... Thank you for coming to Brittany Ferries.” He picked up two tickets and held them out for her. “Here are your tickets, the ferry departs at eleven-thirty and boarding is open half an hour before that,” his voice sounding dull and automated.

“Merci,” she turned around to leave, but remembered she needed one thing, “I’m sorry, do you ‘ave a map?”  
  


* * *

  
Harry surprised himself that he maintained his footing at all with his cousin’s arm slung around his shoulders, using him as support. He was rejoicing in the fact Dudley shaved off so much fat, but muscle still counted as weight. Harry, too, gained weight in the form of muscle, converting as many grams of fat on his body into something practical. He was working his thighs and calves to the bone with every morning workout. Which meant holding his inebriated cousin didn’t pose too much of a challenge. It was Dudley’s own balance — or lack thereof — that made the walking difficult.

Proud of how far he’d come in a month, he often wondered how much he could accomplish if it continued at Hogwarts.

Thinking ahead, his future in particular, wasn’t a strong suit for Harry. He spent most of that time looking through tinted glasses, always towards the worst-case scenario. A mindset fixed at looking at the world in a negative and broken state that he seldom looked at it for its beauty.

He gave a little hop in his step, readjusting Dudley’s arm so it would stop rubbing uncomfortably against the back of his neck, and instead rest on his shoulder blades. If he were able, he would levitate him with the mobilicorpus charm, but Dobby did well to remind him of the repercussions of using magic outside of school. Harry was lucky that year, but this year, with the state of the ministry and the press calling him a liar, he didn’t want to be taking any chances with magic this summer.

Harry had long since bade good night to Ava and her auntie. Ava gave Dudley a kiss, and he slurred words of adoration in response. While Harry received his own kiss on the cheek from the lady who spent most of the night chatting and laughing with Ava’s auntie. She said it was because he was a sweetheart for helping his cousin the way he did. Harry thanked her but felt nothing when it happened. Not a twinge of flattery or embarrassment. He almost felt proud for feeling so.

A good thirty minutes later, Harry was still carrying the weight of his cousin on his shoulder up the final hill into Little Whinging.

They usually took the bus to get to Staines, but in actual fact, they never needed to given the distance of Staines and Little Whinging. They could walk from Privet Drive to Staines, with an additional half an hour compared to public transport.

“Mate, you shouldn’t drink so much,” Dudley mumbled, his head hanging so Harry struggled to hear it.

“Yeah, I try to moderate,” replied Harry with a smile, understanding his state of confusion. Dudley was the one that probably drank more alcohol than anyone in the pub in the matter of a few hours.

Harry was proud of how he handled his liquor. It astounded himself how well he could. Fred and George once commented on how he “should have been pissed into next week”. Harry just thought the pair couldn’t handle it as well as he could. His thoughts wondering if his ridiculous metabolism was responsible as it also prevented him from gaining much weight despite the amount he ate since his arrival at Hogwarts. He didn’t understand it much, but Hermione described it as something people would be jealous of.

Perhaps there was some truth to it as Ava laughed off how regular patrons paled compared to Harry’s rate of swigging. Drinking like it was breathing for him.

“Thanks Hagry,” came Dudley, after nearly tripping over himself if it were not for _Hagry_ catching his full weight.

“No problem, mate. You’d do the same for me, I hope,” Harry said, whispering the last part.

“See, there you go again,” Dudley slurred as he lifted his head, ‘Your pessimism.’

Harry sighed. Even when he was drunk, he could call him out on his shit. Clearly, Dudley was more capable of caring about others than Ron, or at least since his change of course, excluding the years of torment Harry had to go through in his childhood.

“I know it’s hard Harry,” Dudley bit back a belch and allowed a hiccup before he could continue, “Maybe you could at least try to make yourself happy.”

Dudley could sense a retort in his stupendous state and cut Harry off, “You’re not letting yourself, and you know it.”

Harry was getting annoyed at Dudley now. Not because of his sudden change in person and influx of wisdom and thoughtfulness, but because he was right all the time. Maybe to some people it was stating the obvious, he’d bet if Hermione and Ron did not have the level of understanding of what he’s been through, they wouldn’t be as restrained when it came to calling him out. They’d been through so much together that they knew what the other didn’t want to talk about, and what topics would be too emotional to speak of.

Dudley, on the other hand, did not know him at that depth. It was a good thing, getting an outside perspective. He oversimplified it, but the simplification allowed him to present simple solutions, and solutions were something he often ran out of. Hermione and Ron would have never had said something like “try to make yourself happy”. Then again, it would be a step forward to brightening his world.

Eventually, Harry and Dudley were on Wisteria Walk, nearing Privet Drive. Harry didn’t know what his first words to the residents of Number Four about Dudley’s state would be. Vernon would assume he’d “magicked” his boy once again, and Petunia would know plain and simple what a drunken state would look like since she’s been living under the roof of an occasional pub crawler.

Then again, it was late into the night. Harry hoped he’d be lucky and the Dursleys would be asleep if and when he managed to get Dudley through the front door.

As they turned the corner, he saw the lights on in several houses on Privet Drive. He counted as soberly as he could the houses until he reached Number Four and noticed that the lights were on within. Luck wasn’t on his side today, it appeared.

The pair approached the front doorstep of Number Four, and Harry shrugged to get Dudley conscious to an acceptable degree.

“We’re home, Dudley,” Harry informed.

“Whoopee,” he cheered as his forehead bumped against the front door. Harry let a chuckle slip as he reached for his key in his back pocket. He brushed past his wand and tried to get the keyring — which his wand managed to get through — out from around the stick, causing a long and stressful battle to get the keys out with one hand. The musical in his back pocket stopped when he heard the door unlocking.

 _Time to face the music_...Harry thought.

The door opened inward, and Dudley’s head caught itself, shaking him awake. Harry could hardly believe it...

“Fleur?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author Note:** Here’s a thing I’ll say. Fleur's dialogue is stressful to write so if I get something wrong, please do tell me. I could have made all their dialogue italicised to imply they're speaking French, but it's too stressful. I'll instead take a Hollywood route and make them all speak English in a French accent while throwing some French here and there.

**Author's Note:**

>  **End Card:** Feedback is very important to writers. It helps us in ways that you don't understand. If there's anything you want to say, do feel free to leave a comment. Writers love it.
> 
>  **Bonus End Card:** I wish AO3 didn't have such a shitty upload system since copying from Microsoft Word/Scrivener/GoogleDocs with single space fucks up spacing entirely. Formatting gets easily ignored when pasting into RTF. Somehow, there's a massive hurdle just to upload what I've written which just adds another half an hour at least to my work process.


End file.
